On Trump, China, and Romance

Discussion post for February 14, 2025

It’s not lost on us that we are taking a more unique approach to the second Trump administration than many other creators. On today’s show, Sarah and Beth explain some of the thinking behind their approach - including why we want to make space for conversations like the next one on today’s show. We share a fabulous conversation with Jane Perlez about China - its economy, its use of surveillance techniques, and its potential future. Plus, it’s Valentine’s Day, so outside of politics, we’re talking romance!

Topics Discussed

• Why We’re Talking About China

• Jane Perlez on China’s Economy, Surveillance, and Future

• Outside of Politics: Valentine’s Day and Romance

Want more Pantsuit Politics? Subscribe to ensure you never miss an episode and get access to our premium shows and community.

Episode Resources

• Jane Perlez (X Profile)

• Face-Off: The U.S. vs China Podcast (Apple Podcasts)

• Opinion | There’s a Reason Even ‘Smart’ People Surrender to Trump (The New York Times)

Romance Resources

• Opinion | Have More Sex, Please! (The New York Times)

• The First Books Book Club - by Sarah Stewart Holland

• Pride and Prejudice Pilgrimage (Common Ground)

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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To search past episodes of the main show or our premium content, check out our content archive.

This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:08] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today we're going to share a conversation we had with Jane Perlez. A long time foreign correspondent and former Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times. Jane now hosts the podcast Face-Off, which is focused on China, and just launched its second season. Outside of Politics, it's Valentine's Day, y'all. So we're going to talking about romance.

Beth [00:00:28] And since it's Valentine's Day, we just want to share again our love for all of you who listen to our show, especially the people who join our Substack community. I have been floored this week by comments to an episode that I made there about dating and online dating, and the apps. It's really all I can think about right now. And that kind of vulnerability that you all share with us just makes this job one of the best on earth. So thank you so much.

Sarah [00:00:54] Before we get to Jane, we did want to share some of our thinking about why this conversation about China felt important. So that is up next. Beth, I feel our listeners straining a little bit against our reactions towards the Trump administration. I can even hear our inboxes filling up now, like, why are we having this conversation about China when we've got the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard and the confirmation of Kash Patel and the confirmation of RFK? So why are we taking this approach, Beth?

Beth [00:01:44] Well, let me say that I am straining to internally all the time. I've been really looking for ways to make sure that Donald Trump does not manage my nervous system. And so that's first and foremost my goal. I don't want to be miserable all the time, and I don't want to contribute to anyone else's misery. It is really important to me to be a person who can do good work for the long haul, no matter what else is going on in the world. And I think that means a diversity of topics. I think it means a broader perspective than allowing my attention to be controlled and manipulated by one man or two men, as the case may be now. And so making sure that we are looking across the world, looking ahead, looking at business, looking at the economy, looking at trends, looking at culture; all of that preserves some peace for me, but I think it makes me a more effective problem solver. And I feel the best contribution I can make to the world right now is being the best problem solver that I can be.

Sarah [00:02:56] Yeah, there are two parts of my personality sort of at war right now. The first part of my personality is one that is just a care. I don't ever want people to feel unseen, unheard, ignored. I want to be always a part of the group that's paying attention to the people most in pain and feeling like I'm not ignoring something important or refusing to acknowledge someone's suffering. So that's the part of me that's real fired up right now. And the other part of my personality, though, is largely driven by my Enneagram one nature that I don't like doing the same thing if it's not working. I don't obey dumb rules. It's why this summer with Joe Biden post-debate was torturous to me, and I seriously considered changing my party identification because the idea that you would do the same thing knowing it wasn't working just sets me aflame. I cannot handle it. I have a much higher threshold for conflict and change as a result than most people because I just can't do it. I can't do it. And so right now, feeling like we are doing the same thing that we did in 2016, which is just ring the alarm about Donald Trump is really frustrating to me because ringing the alarm has proven not to work over and over and over again.

[00:04:37] Treating Donald Trump like a king and expecting it to land as a criticism of Donald Trump acting like a king, this doesn't seem to be manifesting any actual change. It just seems to empower him and Elon Musk. I'm like a horse at the bit right now. If anything feels like that, I'm just pulling against it. And I'm more likely to lean into places that disrupt my fundamental understanding of politics driven by Donald Trump. There's a lot of foreign policy that I was reading. I got a big old stack of New York Times- they didn't get sent on time, so they all came to me at once. And so it's always an interesting thing to read things late, but also to get some foreign policy perspective. There's so much out there about countries that were happy when he was elected. Countries you wouldn't expect, like Ukraine, that felt like, okay, well, this at least will disrupt the status quo. Things will move faster. You encountered an article like that that you sent around to all of us.

Beth [00:05:44] There's a piece from the president of the Atlantic Council talking about the situation in the Middle East right now, and how different Middle Eastern countries feel about the election of Donald Trump and how in many ways he is more like a lot of other world leaders than an American president typically is. Most world leaders are pretty transactional. Most world leaders are looking out for their own interest; are willing to say a lot of things that aren't exactly true if they advance that interest. We've had a different standard for the American president for a long time than a lot of countries I think have had for their leaders. This is me riffing on his piece now, not paraphrasing him anymore, but that's what I was thinking about as I was reading it. I agree with looking for reads that are challenging to my default mode in a bunch of respects. My default mode about Ukraine, for example, was to do exactly what President Biden did. Get in there, equip them, support them, say this is absolutely wrong. It disturbs the international order. It messes with our wonderful allies in Europe.

[00:06:57] America made commitments to Ukraine at the fall of the Soviet Union that we owe them our support. But also, Americans are war fatigued and we shouldn't send American soldiers to fight and die in Ukraine. And I still believe many of the animating sentiments behind that, and I have to be honest about where that's gotten Ukraine, Russia, the world. This has been so ugly and so brutal. I hate everything that President Trump and Pete Hegseth have said about Ukraine this week. I'm also trying to sit back and be honest about the fact that we are not in a good situation right now. I don't know that anyone is better off today than they were before Russia invaded Ukraine even with President Biden acting in alignment with the way that I said he should act, that I thought he should act. And so I'm just trying to have a huge measure of humility. And I think I can have that measure of humility while staying with the true awfulness that so many Americans are experiencing today and are going to continue to experience because of decisions that I don't agree with. I don't agree with the animating principles behind them, the execution of them, or largely the results.

[00:08:22] I'm just trying to hold all these things at once and see them as clearly as I can, and I am trying to do that without any criticism for how someone else feels. I think some of the strain right now comes from the fact that a critique of the Democratic Party is different than a critique of a person who generally votes with the Democratic Party. A citizen's response is different than an activist groups response. We always have this problem. This is going to come up in our conversation with Jane about China. The Chinese people are hugely diverse group. It's an enormous country. So the people are different from the leadership, and neither is a monolith. And I think that is something that is hard to piece through when you feel a frustration, as I think both of us do, with democratic leadership, for that to not sound like 'and you person listening right now are part of that problem'. That's not what I feel. I think we're all going to have different reactions to Donald Trump. Part of the point here is to keep us all spun up and mad at each other, and that's what I'm trying to actively work against.

Sarah [00:09:36] Well, and that's where the intersection of those two animating principles in my life are. They're not at war, but it's a tough spot right now because I'm in this place where as a person who cares deeply about vulnerable populations is saying what I understood to be true as a progressive and a liberal, and the policies and strategies I pursued have put those vulnerable populations in more danger. What responsibility do I have for that? That's the part that's really difficult right now. I was telling a friend just holding this position and saying, I care about fill in the blank group or issue and I'm a good person because I do and you're a shit person because you don't, could be ethically consistent, could be true. But what does it matter if the situation on the ground gets worse and worse for this group I care about? I don't really want to just assume that backlash is inevitable. I'm not really sure I believe Overton window is any more, I can tell you that much.

[00:10:45] I don't feel like abolish ICE moves the Overton window. I feel like it exposed vulnerable populations, including migrants and asylum seekers, to even worse situations on the ground with regards to ICE. So that's what I'm really trying to question. What works for the groups I care about? Not just what makes me feel like I'm consistent or a good person or I care about the right people, but what actually improves the politics? And it is so hard when everything we do just seems to empower him. It just seems to feed the attention, to feed the strength, to feed the sense that he's the challenger, he's the outsider. I was in the car with Griffin yesterday and he's like does the Democratic Party have anything to say except for orange man is bad. And I'm like, I don't know, son. That's a good question. I think that's why still I still feel that sense of fogginess. I was even really just journaling and trying to think like what could happen? I thought, well, maybe this level of disruption could lead to like the first actual successful independent candidate in 2028. Like, what if that happens?

[00:12:05] But then also at the other end, what if it doesn't break? What if we ring the alarm and say it's going to break, it's going to break, it's going to break and it doesn't break? What then? Because I do think there was a level of that with January 6th. If you weren't watching it play out in real time and all you did was see reports of what happened in it's under control and nothing in your life changed, then what exactly alarm bells should that set up for you? I'm just trying to really push myself. People don't learn the lessons I want them to learn. They don't see the same things that I do, but I still want to live in a democracy where it's ultimately about persuading people who are very different from me. And that's where I'm just trying to play out scenarios that seem unexpected, that seem outside of how I understand reality to work because the humility angle of that is reality hasn't played out the way I expected it to work, particularly with regards to American politics.

Beth [00:13:03] I have a lot of short term worries and many more medium term worries, but my biggest long term worry is that America will ultimately choose a king from all sides because a king is easier than what we're trying to do. It is easier to, as a political identity, be for or against Donald Trump than the messy work of persuasion, issue by issue, race by race, topic by topic, place by place and certainly of compromise. That's exactly right. And so I think that I am trying to not just be against Donald Trump as a political identity, because I worry that that is the easy route, and I want to take the harder route because I value the American experiment and what we're trying to do here. Again, I don't think that means ignoring the hurt and the grief that's out there. Every time I listen to Donald Trump, I think about Kamala Harris and what it would be like if she were sitting behind that desk or in front of that microphone, or sending this post out or making this statement. I'm not over the sadness that I feel that she lost yet. I really liked her. I really believed in her. And that's some of what's going on for everybody. You have to recognize where are my personal life experiences informing and limiting my perspective.

[00:14:35] I feel this big time with the entire DOGE effort because the truth of my professional experience is that I have charged in to places and said we need to cut things. We have too many people. These systems aren't modern. The skill sets of the people in these positions aren't modern. And I have both done some good and made a tremendous amount of mistakes. A tremendous amount of mistakes. And so with everything happening right now, I am trying to slow down my reactions to first say, well, what's my own stuff here that I need to work through with the people who love me and the people who love all of me, not just the people who love the part of me that comes through the phone or some piece of me that comes through the speakers. But it's just a slice of me. The people who love me in whole what kind of stuff is going on here that I need to work through with the?. Okay. And then what do I know to be true? That's hard right now. Just what do I know to be real and true and accurate is hard right now. Does Elon have a security clearance or not? Does he have read only access? To what extent do those facts matter? Or are they another distraction that I'm chasing?

[00:15:56] I made a list for myself of principles, and one of them is that I have spent a huge percentage of my life chasing Donald Trump through the court system over the past six years, at least. And I don't think that that's been a great use of my time or the people who listen to me talk about it time. So how can I do that better? Where I'm paying attention, I'm not letting go of it, but I'm not doing that detailed tracking. I feel like a hamster on a wheel in a lot of ways. And so it's like segment out the emotional piece, then take a look at the pragmatic pieces. And that's not even getting to the political strategy. Okay. How do you win in the next election cycle if you want to beat this back? And then the much harder question that makes me excited about the whiteboard conversations we're trying to have is, and then what are you waiting for? What's the point if you get power again? There was a really good piece in The New York Times today where Masha Gessen is in conversation with some of their colleagues, and Masha says it's hard to oppose Trump right now unless you have a language and an idea to oppose him. And that's what's lacking. And I think that's what we keep trying to circle around. But certainly there are 600 other layers operating all the time.

Sarah [00:17:20] And that's what I'm think I'm just allergic to. I don't want to hear it. Unless you have an idea, I don't want to hear the-- I don't even want to hear the outrage. That's just the brutal truth. Me emotionally right now. Because what did it get us? What did it get us? Even with regards to the court, I think this constitutional crisis conversation I'm really allergic to because I don't want to legitimize the Supreme Court right now because I don't think it's legitimate. And I'm going to at least be consistent about that and not decide that I think it's the central point of democracy because I want Donald Trump stopped. What happened to all the critiques of the court? And now we've decided they're our savior? What are we doing? I want a vision what is a functioning federal government look like? Because I think we do all agree it's too big. Okay. So we don't want to do it this way. But all we ever heard including when we really wanted to upend some of the federal government like when Mitch McConnell was using his power- that was a really powerful Congress. Did we like it then?

[00:18:24] Do we like the powerful Congress when Mitch McConnell used his power to upend that Supreme Court nomination process? Now that we're all calling for a powerful Congress. Do you see what I mean? The argument is formulated as if we have all the facts and the history and the ethics on our side, but the truth is they shift depending on who we're talking about. Nobody was worried about upending Congress's power when they wanted Joe Biden to go in at the end after Kamala Harris lost and do all kinds of crazy shit like appointing her the president. Do you see what I'm saying? So don't do that. That's what got us here with this super power executive. And that's why I'm just trying to push myself, like, don't just do what will feel good because you hate him and you hate what he does. Because I think you're right. I think it is a siren song and it is a tempting siren song, and it is why authoritarianism is so successful. It's because people just go, fine, just fix it and leave me alone. Just shut up. I don't want the drama. I don't want us all fighting amongst ourselves. Just put a strong man in charge. Keep the trains running on time and leave me the hell alone.

[00:19:36] And we're going to exhaust everybody and put them in that spot where they're like, fine. I think that's how he won this time. Barely, but won. People just going, fine. Just fix it. And that's why I'm interested in places like Chinese foreign policy where there is bipartisan agreement where we can at least leave some of this tit for tat, I care unless my guy is in charge and then I want to do it this way and actually scratch at what we're missing or what we are getting right. Any place where there's like bipartisan agreement, whether I think it's good or bad is an interesting place to me right now, because I do think the you're bad and hate America from both sides-- I know we're supposed to not say both sidesism, but there is not a truer space of both sidesism in America right now than pointing the finger and going, you hate America and you want to destroy it. It is the truest thing in American politics right now. And so places where that's not true around China, around AI, around not a lot of places, but wherever they are, they are very interesting to me.

Beth [00:20:49] Sometimes when you and I speak on college campuses, we talk about our ecosystems, how everything happening politically is part of an ecosystem. And I think foreign policy is such a useful way to think about that because it is easy to just slide into, well, China's bad and we're good and so we need to be ahead of China in AI; economically we need to exert more influence than China exerts in the world. And if you spend any time learning about any other country, you just recognize that, no, it's much more complex than that. An ecosystem requires the presence of, yes, some people are higher on the food chain than others, but that doesn't mean wipe out the existence of the lower pieces of the food chain. And sometimes it means you need lots more of the lower on the food chain. This doesn't translate perfectly to foreign policy. Please don't take that metaphor too seriously into a gross direction. But what I'm trying to say is that it helps me to step back in this time when thinking about the exercise of power is fundamental to everybody's next step.

[00:21:57] Every single person, whether you think Donald Trump is the greatest president we've ever had or the worst, or you're somewhere in between, everybody right now has to be soul searching about what power is and how you amass it and what you do with it, and how it should be constrained. And I think foreign policy is so helpful in that respect. One of the things that struck me in preparing to talk with Jane was hearing her interview with Admiral Scott Swift, who said Americans need to understand that the fall of China is more dangerous to us than the rise of China. Well, now there's something that disrupts the bipartisan narrative about China. Even though probably a lot of the lawmakers who are part of serious efforts around China would understand and agree with that statement; it disrupts what comes to us as a voting public. And it's not that I expect everyone to be a China scholar. It's just that I think listening to these stories of other places and our relationships to other places add a layer of complexity to what we think about our political leaders and also to our own understanding of what we think of power.

Sarah [00:23:08] Well, foreign policy and history, my two most favorite places to find grounding in a moment like this, just tell you over and over and over again that you don't have all the information and so your reaction is most likely more emotional than it is analytic. And as an emotional person, I need to hear that a lot. That you're not alone. There's nothing new under the sun. I was even thinking about that with the FBI and Kash Patel. I am so glad I read that voluminous biography of J. Edgar Hoover, because what that book will teach you is that that institution has at its core a fierce independence and a real ability-- again, because J. Edgar Hoover is not just an easy villain, he's more complicated than we want him to be. A real ability to ride the politics, to understand that you are both a political creation that has to outlast the president, but that you are also dependent on the president.

[00:24:17] And as I was kind of watching this play out, I thought, right, because this institution is J. Edgar Hoover's baby from beginning to end. From beginning to end it's just sewn into the fabric of that institution the way that he navigated politics. And that's not something that just goes away. It's there. And that stuff helps me. It helps me remember that there's more going on here than that can be summed up in a meme or even a New York Times article. There's always more to learn and there's always more to understand. And foreign policy is the same way. Like understanding that other countries are facing the same currents we are helps me to remember that it's not just about orange man bad, there's a lot more going on here.

Beth [00:25:06] Well, and I think that what you said about the FBI being J. Edgar Hoover's baby is part of the tremendous hurt that people are feeling in response to what's happening in federal agencies. There are a lot of people who have done their life's work inside the government and it is miserable to have that taken from you. And not just taken from you, but spat upon, disrespected the way it's being disrespected. To have it done in a way that feels illegitimate in a number of respects. To have it done without any understanding even of what they're doing in the process, that's miserable and it hurts people very much. And we could spend 50 minutes here talking about how awful that is, and it would be justified because it's not that the emotions don't belong- they absolutely belong. That's been a premise of our show from the beginning. The emotions absolutely belong alongside the analytical. I think what we are both experiencing-- and for me this is at least 50% coping mechanism. Okay. I can't describe it as something lofty. It's at least half coping mechanism.

[00:26:16] I just can't do 50 minutes on that right now and then show up next week and do it twice again and the next week and do it twice again. And I don't know that me doing it over and over again contributes much. And I want to contribute right now. I want to help. I see in my own community with respect to the precise issue of homelessness the impact of what the Trump administration is doing and it's awful. And I could talk about how awful it is, but what I really want to do is just figure out what we do next, how we problem solve. We've gotten so many messages with people worried about the SAVE Act and about who is going to be able to vote if that law passes. And what I keep telling people is, number one, that law has been introduced before. It is one of many laws that make it way too hard to prove that you are who you say you are. We have those in states, we have them in cities, we have them in the federal level. It is a dumb solution to a practically nonexistent problem.

[00:27:20] And also we do this. It's not new. It's not unique. We do this in so many spheres where we say we're going to make it hard to interact with your government. If you don't have high executive function, if your life is precarious in any respect, we're going to make it really hard for you to interact with your government. And so whatever happens to that law and whatever is spit out from this administration, in this Congress over the next four years, I just want to be well positioned to say, well, here's how we're going to meet that challenge. And maybe we even make some progress in the process. Maybe the SAVE Act passes, the outcry is so great that organizations spring up everywhere helping many, many more people, not just married women who changed their name. Many more people have access to government services because we build organizations that get them IDs. We help many, many more people get passports. I just refuse to believe that it's the last day because it sucks right now. And the more I sit in how much it sucks, the less equipped I am to pick up and say let's go. On to the next thing.

Sarah [00:28:29] Well, and this part is hard. Guys, the truth is that we could do it. We could do the outrage machine, and we could put the right layers on YouTube videos, and we could drive all kinds of clicks. You do not just gain attention and audience share by being angry and outraged on the right. We could do it. We could do it. Make a lot more money, probably. And I could also do the cool headed expertise must be driven by data or an academic understanding that also is kind of riding me the wrong way too, because I feel like that's limited in perspective as well. And that's why I keep describing that foggy feeling. And that's why I keep talking about that book, The Storm Before the Calm, because it's the only book that was like, hey, can I clear some of this fog away? And it was enormously helpful because that's really all I want to do right now. I don't want to feed the outrage machine because I don't think it works, particularly for the people I care most about and the communities I care most about- my own and bigger national communities.

[00:29:55] And I don't want to just assess it from this academic perspective because I don't think that works, and it's getting on my nerves if I'm just being honest. And so I'm trying to find that middle ground, which I do think that we do here. And I'm proud of the fact that we do it here where it's I'm not ignoring the emotional impact. I'm not ignoring the suffering and the pain, but I'm not letting it drive the car. I'm trying to hold the complexity of the moment. Just because Donald Trump is transactional and has a way of erasing complexity, does not mean that we have to react that way. I was thrilled when Jane accepted our invitation. I think the conversation we have about China is complex and does not lean on easy, reductive stories. I'm just really allergic to that right now. And there's a part of me that wants to apologize for that, because I know it's hard for people, and there's a part of me that wants to say sorry, not sorry. I got to go where I'm going. You got to go where you're going. Hopefully, it's together. Hopefully, we at least can walk side by side and learn from each other along the way. So that's what we try to do with Jane. We try to walk side by side, learn some things along the way, and we hope you do as well. So without further ado, our conversation with Jane Perlez.

Beth [00:31:38] Jane, I am so thrilled that you're here. Listening to your extraordinary podcast, Face Off, I realized that I was born in 1981 and the Cold War is a part of my DNA in a way that I think it is not part of the DNA of people who are younger than I am. And I feel like I have been trapped in approaching our situation with China through a Cold War lens that I wasn't really even aware of until I started listening to your show. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about where that works and doesn't work as we assess the current US-China relationship.

Jane Perlez [00:32:18] Well, I think it's a very good question and has many, many angles to it and we could spend many universities seminars about it. I do think that people today think of China through the lens of a Cold War too much. I think that there's so much freaking out in Washington about China, a country of 1.4 billion people with nuclear weapons and a fast growing military and a huge manufacturing base, that they call this the new Cold War with capital letters. And we're never going to get out of it. But I think a way to look at it is that we had a Cold War with the Soviet Union when you were growing up, which ended in 1989, 1991 peacefully, because basically the Soviet Union was a weak economic power. It just didn't have the economy to keep going and compete with the United States.

[00:33:24] China is completely different because it's a very strong economic power and its military is growing very fast. They have more boats in their navy than we do. They have many more 18 to 25-year-olds that they can throw at a war over Taiwan than we do. So it is much more of a challenge, but I think people should think of it as a challenge that can be coped with because the United States is a big grown up country and we have a democracy and we have a good economy, and we have freedom of speech and we can deal with it. I think there's freaking out in Washington about China is the big bad boy and we've got to overtake it and we've got to have regime change, which means overthrowing the government, it's just way too extreme.

Sarah [00:34:12] I feel like my foreign policy orientation is much more defined by September 11th and Afghanistan and Iraq and these sort of forever wars and a real desire to see America's role on the foreign stage more aggressively- sort of what you're defining there. Like we'll go in and we'll fix it, and we have to dominate and we have to... And really what that did was lead us to sort of not even forever cold wars, just forever hot wars. And it feels like our orientation to China is like a Venn diagram of those two conflicts. Like we can't quite decide what we're doing. Is it a cold war? Is it a hot war? We're definitely concerned about conflict over Taiwan, but we also want to dominate them as far as in the industrialization and the AI and the tech. And also, yes, we are worried about their military buildup. So it feels like it's aggressive because we don't know what it is. It feels like we're just throwing everything at it because China is big. That's what we can agree on. Everything is big. The problems are big. Their economy is big. Their population is big. And so our response should be big. But that feels like the only cohesiveness I can find.

Jane Perlez [00:35:29] Well, I think you described the situation well in some respects, and it sort of sounds a little bit like a comic book, don't you think? It's so sharply drawn and it doesn't have to be drawn that way. I'm not saying that we should cozy up to China or that we should capitulate in any way, but there has to be more talk between the two sides. There has to be more rational discussion. Do you know that there's only been one congressional delegation to China in the last five years? They would have been more congressional delegations in the last five years of the Soviet Union than one. Now, that's in part because of Covid. But since Covid, just one. And COVID's an excuse, but it's an excuse. In our second episode of this new season, we deal with journalists in China. And we don't get good information about China. Why? Because they're only about 19-20 western journalists in China at the moment. Why? Because there were many more when I was there from 2012 to 2019. The New York Times had 10 reporters in Beijing and two in Shanghai. Now, The New York Times has two.

[00:36:51] When we need the most, there are no journalists. Why? Because the first Trump administration kicked out like 60 Chinese journalists from the United States saying that they were all spies. Some of them may have been doing things they shouldn't have been doing, but the Trump administration knew that there would be retaliation and that we would be kicked out. So there's no real reporting from on the ground. There's lots of reporting about the economy, Chinese economy, and the statistics and manufacturing and all this kind of stuff, but there's no reporting of human beings. It's bad for the Chinese, too, because we can't portray the Chinese as human beings because we're not there to do so. And the reporters who are there are really restricted in their movements. So I think that all helps to this sort of cartoon characterization that you have, that you describe so well.

Beth [00:37:45] This really concerns me, Jane, because I heard you and a guest discussing on your show that western journalists might understand more about China than the CIA.

Jane Perlez [00:37:56] Well, that was a little presumptuous. I have to say.

Beth [00:37:59] But can you talk a little bit about the limitations on our surveillance in that sense that China is in so many respects a black box to our intelligence agencies?

Jane Perlez [00:38:09] Well, I'm a little hesitant to do so because I don't know quite what the CIA is doing there. And I think also that today surveillance is now digital satellites even more than satellites. It's not so much boots on the ground as it used to be. So I don't think the United States has a lot of CIA agents running around. Though, who knows? I can speak more to the journalist side, but the CIA side of it I'm a little hesitant to talk about. But I want to remind our listeners that (you won't believe this) in the 1980s there was cooperation between the CIA and the Chinese security services and intelligence agencies. They had joint listening stations up on the border with the Soviet Union, and together they were spying on the Soviets as the Soviets were testing their nuclear weapons. So where there's a will, there's a way.

Sarah [00:39:11] I wonder because of the bigness and the reaction and the lack of good information, where else we are painting with that broad strokes, that comic book portrayal? And one area I am very curious for your take on is the economy. Because to me it seems like even though the economy is big, the Chinese economy is experiencing some fragility. If not fragility, some brittleness around government interference or a lack of government interference or the fact that XI Jinping, I think, is willing to do less than predecessors in regards to the Chinese economy and propping it up in certain areas. I wonder what your perspective is on that? Is it in as rough a space as we think it is? I was very struck by listening to your conversation with David Sanger where he said a weakened economy makes China more dangerous, not less dangerous. And so what is your perspective on that?

Jane Perlez [00:40:11] I think there's a yes and no. I have a very good Chinese friend who was in our New York Times bureau in Beijing when I was there. I was there from 2012 to 2019. He's in his late 20s and he's now studying for a PhD in Washington, D.C.. And he was just back in Beijing, and I said, "Things must be really bad." He said, "Well, they're bad, but they're not so bad because when you think about it, we're just one child families." Families don't have the responsibilities that many do in the United States. On the other hand, the real estate bubble that burst is real. There are enough ghost departments to fill the population of Germany. Can you believe that? That's 80 million uncompleted apartments. So what that means is there are, who knows, probably millions of unemployed plasterers, plumbers, tradesmen of all kind. And what are they doing and feeling? And what are they doing to keep themselves alive?

[00:41:19] And then there's we read 25% unemployment among people under 25. What are they doing? Very hard for us to know. But I thought the New York Times, if I may say, did something very ingenious the other day. They had a delivery woman who delivers nonstop food around Shanghai. They wired her up, or they put a video camera on her back, and they followed around as she went to every doorstop? And by the end of the day, she earned $17.83 for 12 hours work. So that gives you an idea of how tough things are. And so I think a lot of people ask what do ordinary people like our food delivery woman think about the regime. That's what I wonder. Very hard to know. So the equation has always been we, the Communist Party, will give you a decent life and in exchange you support us. So if the decent life sort of frays around the edges, what's going on?

Sarah [00:42:28] Well, and if the decent life involves throwing 18 to 25-year-olds (maybe you only have one child) in great numbers at a war in Taiwan, what is that going to do to the implicit agreement between the Communist Party and the Chinese people?

Jane Perlez [00:42:43] Right. I wouldn't like to say there's no prediction about war by any country, but I think that a war with Taiwan is a weigh of if and when it's going to happen. I don't think it's going to be on this watch, so to say, the next few years. I think the Chinese will try other things first like economic blockade. They'll try and strangle Taiwan before they try and kill it with bombs. Because it's not in their interest to have everyone in Taiwan either.

Beth [00:43:19] I want to talk more about those 18 to 25-year-olds. I was really interested in your discussions about lying flat. So I'd love for you to tell our listeners who aren't familiar with that movement about it. And I would also love to talk about the perception being conveyed through RedNote to some of our younger listeners. I've been really flabbergasted by the conclusions people are drawing about life in China from their participation on RedNote. So I would just love your take on what is going on with younger people to the extent that we know in China.

Jane Perlez [00:43:54] Well, I've been fascinated by the opposite direction of that RedNote. How young American listeners have been telling their Chinese new friends about economic life here. And the Chinese listeners are just totally bowled over when they hear how much a mortgage costs, how much the cost of an apartment, how much food costs, how much everything costs. They say, oh, wait a minute. We thought that the United States was the land of the free and the best. They're quite taken aback by that. So I think this is a really healthy exchange if it's not taken too way seriously. Elsy Chen, who is about 26 or so and worked in our bureau as a news assistant, was here at Harvard last year as a Nieman Fellow, and I brought her on the podcast to talk about lying flat because she'd lay flat for about a year. And basically it happened during Covid. Young people at university; the universities were closed; life was terrible during Covid so they just decided to take time off. Many went to the southern part of China, which is warmer and freer, and farther away from Beijing where the emperor is, and the regulations are a little less. And they just hung around for a while. And I think that's not as fierce as it was during Covid, but it's continuing in a small way. And maybe Chinese under 25 some are not taking life quite so seriously.

Sarah [00:45:35] I was recently in Yellowstone, and my family and I were about to begin a hike, and a group of about eight young Chinese people came out of the woods. They were very concerned about bears, and we said, well, just join us on this hike. The bear's not going to come after all 13 of us. We will be safe as a group. And so we went on about a 2.5 hour hike together. And so we talked a lot about China and America. And they were young people. They were a group of eight that had never met in person before they took this trip to America together, where they were driving hours and hours and hours all across the western United States. And they talked a little bit about lying flat and how they had this-- I didn't ask specifically, but I guess they were changing jobs. So I had this time period, but they were saying we work a lot, we don't get a lot of time to go vacation and see the world. That's why we've come for such a long time because we found this time period. Maybe that's how they joined up. I don't know. But one of the young woman who spoke the best English was saying that this generation-- well, I told her what I did at Pantsuit Politics. And she's like we don't talk about politics. I was like, yeah, but you do.

Jane Perlez [00:46:53] But life is politics.

Sarah [00:46:55] But she said, "I'm really interested in feminism." She listens to podcasts about feminism and women in Chinese culture. And then one of the men that was on the trip with them told my parents that China was not a safe place for Americans right now. So we had this really interesting cultural exchange about.

Jane Perlez [00:47:13] Sounds very candid.

Sarah [00:47:14] Yeah, I thought so too. I thought it was a really interesting insight into the young people of China and what they're willing to-- or they're interested in criticizing. I thought it was very fascinating that she was willing to articulate a desire for feminism. And they were basically saying like a better life. They wanted to work less. They wanted to have some more time to travel and relax. And so just that generational conversation and that generational exchange between Chinese and Americans, wherever it happens, that's what I'm concerned about. I think that villainization of China and that building it up in that way, even though it happens on a bipartisan note, so often misses.

Jane Perlez [00:47:55] That's incredible thing.

Sarah [00:47:58] Yeah. It's bipartisan.

Jane Perlez [00:48:00] It's incredible. But I'm glad you met those young Chinese people because you got a sense of the dynamic back in China and particularly the feminism. Did you see yesterday it was in the news that marriages last year declined by 20%?

Sarah [00:48:17] They're going through some earthquake demographic changes.

Jane Perlez [00:48:21] Definitely. And I'm glad to say in our new second season that opened today, we have an episode on women. And we have one of our news assistants, Albie Jang [sp], who opens the episode, she's 37, she tells all her friends don't get married. And I said, why is that? And she said, Because I've watched my mother and I've watched other mothers just be slaves to working in the household, having no help. And my mother died at the age of 50 because of overwork, and my father was working somewhere else. So I think the new generation of women in their 20s they're really rebelling against this hard life of being a woman in the house, and divorce is very hard to get. There are not many women judges, but it apparently is not even a matter of the gender of the judges. It's just divorce is very hard to get.

[00:49:19] There was an anti-domestic violence law that was introduced a few years ago, but it doesn't seem to have had most effect. But the good news is maybe one of your friends on the hike mentioned this. There's this character, Auntie Su Min. She's an older woman and she wanted to divorce her husband and it became incredibly difficult. And she took a video of all her discussions with her husband about how he just had to give up and go away and not be violent, etc., and they went viral on WeChat, the Chinese app, and she's become a folk hero inside China for actually getting the divorce going on the road and being her independent self. Really fantastic.

Beth [00:50:04] I love that. That's a little bit what I mean when I say I'm surprised by the people's response to RedNote. I am not surprised at all that the Chinese people are people and delightful and have rich and full experiences. I am hesitant to draw conclusions about the governing regime from those interactions with the people because of the way that it is so deeply ingrained that we don't talk about politics there.

Sarah [00:50:32] But that's what's missing, right? That's the disconnect. It is it becomes this big, powerful country, that means all the people, too. But that's not true. That's not true. It doesn't mean that just because the Chinese Communist Party has its policy as abhorrent as it might be, its persecution of the Uyghurs, that doesn't mean it's backed by the billions of Chinese people. It doesn't work like that there. And I think it becomes bigger and scarier because the assumption and the implication inside our politics is that all Chinese people. That it's a democracy; that this is backed by some kind of power of these billions of people, but that is not the case.

Jane Perlez [00:51:09] No, definitely not the case. And I'll give you an example. Back in 2018, the leader of China, Xi Jinping, announced he was going to do away with a two term limit on being president. There's a two term limit here. There's a two term limit there. But he persuaded the National People's Congress to do away with that constitutional clause. And he was going to be emperor for life. And all journalists were shocked. I happened to be in Hong Kong and I called up a very good source, I should say, someone at one of the prestigious universities. I said what is going on here? And he said, "I can't talk about it," and hung up the phone, which was very unusual. I saw him later and he said, "We can't say anything. Everybody just put up with it." So very difficult to say what you think. Almost impossible. Except inside your family maybe.

Beth [00:52:09] So I guess that makes this question hard to answer. But I'm curious, we've talked about the US having an overall cartoonish perspective of China, how do you think the governing regime in China views the United States right now?

Jane Perlez [00:52:25] I think they say it over and over again, they see the United States as particularly in the last four years-- Biden pretty much continued the policies of the first Trump administration. And I'm not putting blame anywhere, but the Chinese see the United States is trying to contain China. To try and stop China from having what it considers to be its natural rights to be influential and to be basically the power in Asia. The United States has been the prime power in Asia since World War Two. And China, I think, sees that that should be them. I don't think China necessarily wants to rule the world, but I do think that they want to be the prime power in Asia. And that's where the conflict comes. Not only in Taiwan, but everywhere else. The Philippines is a former colony of the United States. They'd like to be better considered in Japan and South Korea, which I think will be hard, but maybe not so hard. And then down all through Southeast Asia, they would like to be the biggest power. And they're getting that way because they've got the Navy, they've got the economic class, very much the economic class. Look at all levies that they're exporting. Look at all the solar panels. They've got $1 trillion trade surplus now this year largely from their manufacturing prowess. So it'll be interesting to see what the United States decides to do about that.

Beth [00:54:05] I'm interested in you saying that you don't think they want to rule the world-- just Asia-- or to be the dominant player in the world, but in Asia. Can you help me think through, then, the point of China's activities in Africa and Latin America, the Belt and Road Initiative sort of modern Silk Road ideas?

Jane Perlez [00:54:25] Yes. By the way, I was there when Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative. It sounds so long ago, but it was in 2012, 2013, and he went to Kazakhstan, the neighboring country, and made a speech in a little university there. And it was quite interesting to see this big program announced. I think they do that because they do want to be powerful everywhere. I don't think they want to be perhaps the ruling power. But with Belt and Road, they definitely want to be able to extract minerals that are useful like lithium, for example, which are critical in making batteries for EVs, all kinds of stuff. It's very important. And then the Belt and Road is a big soft power play by them in getting influence at the United Nations, getting influence at other multilateral organizations where they can become a stronger voice. But, by the way, Belt and Road hasn't worked out too well for them because instead of using local people to build the railways or build the roads or build whatever it was, they imported tens of thousands of Chinese workers. That didn't go down too well in African countries, for example.

Sarah [00:55:49] And I wonder what happens when whatever part of the world they're trying to exert that influence bumps up against Russian influence? Because that's a piece of the puzzle I do think with regards to both our historical framework of the Cold War and our combative relationship with Russia, that things start to get interesting. Because that's part of the bipartisan justification, is that China and Russia have this limitless alliance that they've now told the world about constantly. But I have to imagine that, yes, that is also a threat. And also it's not always limitless, and certainly not without internal conflict as well.

Jane Perlez [00:56:25] It's definitely not limitless. The history of Russia and China loving each other is pretty short, actually. There is a very interesting incident back in 1969 when Nixon was preparing to go to China, the head of the KGB in the Soviet Union embassy had lunch with the State Department guy, and the State Department guy wrote up a memo afterwards, which is one of the most interesting memos I've ever read. He said, "As I was about to put a piece of fish on my fork into my mouth, the KGB guy said, 'well, what would the United States think if Russia dropped a few nuclear bombs on the Chinese in the northern part of their country?'" That's how much they hated each other. This is a KGB suggesting they were going to drop tactical nukes on China. So they don't love each other. But at the moment they do like each other. Putin and Xi Jinping, the two autocrats, say they love each other. Why? I think it's a marriage of convenience, because they hope that it will weaken the United States. So that partnership weakens the United States. That they keep the Ukraine war going and that that keeps the United States on its toes, weakens it, and they do other partnerships elsewhere. I'm not sure where, but I think they think that this partnership freaks out Washington.

Sarah [00:57:48] Well, how often when the freak out is real, though? Not just through the lens of the partnership with Russia, but there's been a lot of alarmist language about surveillance and Salt Typhoon and the Chinese buildup of their military as compared to our military. Salt Typhoon seems concerning to me that they have gained access to our telecommunications infrastructure and we can't seem to get them out. How much of that do you look at and say that alarm is well-founded?

Jane Perlez [00:58:20] I think the alarm is well-founded, but I think it's also up to the powers that be, including the telecoms companies, to modernize and bring the equipment up to 2025 standards instead of 16th century. One of the reasons as I understand, I'm not a big expert, but my colleague David Sanger who writes about this says that the telecoms, even one of the big companies in the United States, is such a patchwork of old stuff and new stuff. It's not so hard to penetrate. So why isn't this fixed? And I do think the Chinese have penetrated this stuff, not only the telecoms, but also as you know government agencies. Office of Personnel Management was hacked, I think, back in the Obama days. That's really scary to me that the Chinese have the information of so many federal workers in the United States.

Beth [00:59:20] And this, to me, gets to the difficulty in breaking that cartoonish perspective, because there just isn't trust. And I don't know how you establish trust when you know that this level of surveillance is ongoing, when you know that Chinese high ranking officials are excellent at wasting time during diplomatic meetings when you have an extraordinary lack of communication between our militaries. I don't know who comes to the table first in a scenario where both parties have so villainized the other.

Jane Perlez [00:59:55] I think it's an amazing question and I'm looking forward to hearing what the just returned U.S. ambassador, who was in Beijing for three years, Nicholas Burns, has to say about this because he had to confront those issues every single day that he was in Beijing. And he was in Beijing when the spy balloon came over the United States. He was in Beijing when Nancy Pelosi went to Taiwan. And when negotiations were just in the deep freeze or talks were in the deep freeze for (I forget how many) maybe ten months or so. Now they're back a little bit. Senior military leaders met twice in the last number of months, but that's very little. And I can guarantee that if there's a serious incident in the South China Sea, either a collision between American and Chinese boats or between, God forbid, another collision between a Chinese fighter jet and American surveillance plane, I can guarantee, almost, that Washington will try to call Beijing and Beijing won't pick up the phone. We can do talks and we have to do talks and we should do more, but that doesn't guarantee that there will be friendly talks when the crisis really hits. Very puzzling situation.

Beth [01:01:19] This worries me because it feels like there are so many opportunities to have an accident that leads to that crisis.

Jane Perlez [01:01:25] Indeed.

Beth [01:01:26] And especially on our end, I don't see any cooler heads that might prevail.

Jane Perlez [01:01:32] Well, I'm not going to get into politics, but I agree with you, Beth. I think that the temperature is very high in Washington, and the Chinese are somewhat better at covering their emotions whether they have any or not, because it's such a disciplined nontransparent system. But I think that the chance of reasonably solving collision like that is very low. And that is really the frightening thing. There was such a collision in 2001 soon after George Bush came into power. Fighter jet of the Chinese hit an American surveillance plane. And the surveillance plane managed to land on Chinese soil and the 26 crew were kept hostage for-- I forget the exact number of days-- something like 24 days, but they were let go because we had good diplomats and they weren't as powerful then. That's not going to happen today. That's the sad thing.

Beth [01:02:43] To leave people not in that very depressing posture--

Jane Perlez [01:02:48] Sorry, I didn't mean to put everybody in the wheel.

Beth [01:02:50] No. I want to be very realistic about where we are. And I wonder, on the same token, what opportunities in the near term do you see for improvement in this relationship, if any?

Jane Perlez [01:03:03] It's very hard to say. This is sort of corny and I don't think it helps terribly much. But, for example, there are only 1,005 American students in China today at universities. They were 10,000. There are 270,000 Chinese students in the United States and dropping. I think we should try and keep the Chinese students as much as possible here. And we should certainly send more American students to China. It's a small drop and it doesn't really affect critical power relations. But I think there just has to be an even keel. And talk of, for example, regime change or forcing regime change in China is quite unhelpful. I think we have to recognize that the Communist Party is there. They're the power and they will remain the power. We have to learn how to deal with them.

Beth [01:03:58] Well, it is such a pleasure to talk with you. I'm very excited to listen to you and learn from your second season of Face Off. Thank you so much for spending time with us.

Jane Perlez [01:04:07] Thank you. Love the title of your show.

Sarah [01:04:09] Well, thank you.

Beth [01:04:10] Thank you.

Sarah [01:04:20] Thank you to Jane for joining us. As always, we're going to end the episode with a bit of an exhale. It's Valentine's Day. So how are we not going to talk about romance? Very specific topic. Not like the holiday itself, because I really don't want to hear people's critique about Valentine's Day anymore. I'm just being honest. I do feel like Galentine's Day lessen that. It kind of release some of the pressure around Valentine's Day in a way that's been helpful [inaudible].

Beth [01:04:51] I think that's right and I also feel like there is more of an embrace of anything that's fun and distinctive. And so I like that. I decorated more for Valentine's Day this year.

Sarah [01:05:01] I did not decorate. Why didn't I decorate? I don't know.

Beth [01:05:04] I just think it's nice to have a sense of the seasons moving and something new and there's still a lot of fun and silliness to lean into.

Sarah [01:05:14] Listen, you better find a path forward because Punxsutawney Phil says we got six more weeks of winter, everybody. So throw up your Valentine's decoration, embrace the romance. I do feel like there is an undercurrent conversation, I don't know why, about romance. I do feel like there's been a conversation in Hollywood about like people want give us some sex, give us some love, give us a good old fashioned romcom. Bring it back. That's the first place I noticed it.

Beth [01:05:42] And I am supportive of that effort.

Sarah [01:05:43] I am supportive of that effort. I agree wholeheartedly.

Beth [01:05:49] There was a piece in the New York Times probably a year ago now that was like opinion we'd all be happier if we had more sex. And I was like I think that's correct. Cosign.

Sarah [01:06:00] Yeah I agree. Listen, I watched Bridget Jones Diary the original.

Beth [01:06:03] I could reenact that movie dramatically for you right now. That's how many times I've seen it and love it.

Sarah [01:06:07] I have not seen that many times. Rewatching it was fascinating. It's really good and I just love when he starts looking at her in that way- Mr. Darcy. The feeling in my belly that I get when I watch a romantic comedy is just the best where I'm like, oh, I want them to the kiss. They better kiss. I hope they kiss.

Beth [01:06:28] That movie does such a good job of putting together in a really fun and light (not at all heavy handed way) all of the weird stuff that you feel when you start to have romantic sentiments toward another person- like the confusion and the rejection and the embarrassment. I love that movie so much because you can write it in your own body with her.

Sarah [01:06:56] Well, it's really interesting to watch [inaudible] because of the Hugh Grant boss angle, but I watched it. I was like, you know what? I don't know, it kind of holds up. I think the way he flirts with her, the way she responds, the way she does with her boss and is like I'm quitting. And kind of embarrasses him. Like, I'm out. I'm going to do another job because I have something with my boss. I just watched it. I was prepared to just be like, oh my God, the whole time. And I wasn't. At the end I was like, I don't know. I think Bridget navigated this not so badly.

Beth [01:07:28] I don't know if there is a funnier scene from any romantic comedy than when they're in the boat and she says, "Season of mist and mellow fruitlessness." He goes, "Oh fuck me, I love kids." It's the best.

Sarah [01:07:45] It's just Hugh grant is the best. So I'm watching this old school romance. Obviously, I'm in my First Books Book Club. I've just started the Danielle Steel Passion's Promise, which guys it's not so bad. I just need to put it out there. It's pretty good so far.

Beth [01:08:02] It has to be good. She builds an empire. Like there's something working.

Sarah [01:08:06] I think my premise that the first ones they write are the best is pretty good. The New York Times has a little quiz where you can find your own romance books to like recommend them to the-- they're only recommending ones I've already read, which is not working out well for me especially Emily Henry. Have you ever read any Emily Henry?

Beth [01:08:22] I have, yes.

Sarah [01:08:23] So good those [crosstalk] novel.

Beth [01:08:26] Very fun.

Sarah [01:08:28] Now, I do worry though, with all this artistic rendering of romance, are we going to get stuck back in the trap I personally experienced in my life where I wanted my real life to be like a romantic comedy and poor, sweet Nicholas Holland had to dedicate the first like, I don't know, five years of our relationships to be like, lady, this is not a romantic comedy and I am not Hugh Grant. Please adjust your expectations accordingly.

Beth [01:08:53] That's a good question. Here's my question in response. What percentage of a healthy relationship should feel like a romantic comedy?

Sarah [01:09:03] A healthy one. Do you have children? I don't know, like 10%. How many children do you have?

Beth [01:09:12] I do think it depends on what season of parenting you're into for sure. It's much, much harder when you are just in the thick of it with little ones and toddlers and holy moly. But, I mean, it's not zero.

Sarah [01:09:25] No.

Beth [01:09:25] And I think that it's good to have that sort of aspirational mode out there, too.

Sarah [01:09:31] Well, I just can't decide with this romance moment. Here's what I'm worried about. I think there's a phase that could happen where you remind everybody that it's out there and so they go pursue it. So you kind of put a wash of all this romance, romance novels, romantic comedies, all the things, the Netflix show everybody was obsessed with Kristen Bell and what's his name? Nobody wants this. Nobody wants this. Okay. Which, fun fact, I only watched two episodes. I didn't like it that much. But, anyway, that's not the point. So you get all this and everybody's like, yeah, you know what? I do want some romance in my life. And they go pursue it. I'm just a little worried now. You hear so much that online content like the fact that you could just read endless romance novels, romance content, you could have an AI boyfriend that we just make it a little too easy to pursue it in other places, so people won't go out there and figure out that only about maybe 10 to 20% of that time should it feel like that in real life, but it's still worth it.

Beth [01:10:35] I do think it would be valuable to have more stories about that 10% or so in long, mature relationships. Because the trouble with setting expectations is that most of our storytelling around romance is about new romance. And we don't get a lot of exploration of how you keep it once you're in the thick of it.

Sarah [01:11:00] Even though those are some of my favorite ones. Like the good movies, the good storytelling about long term relationships are just chef's kiss.

Beth [01:11:10] But it's hard for me to think of one. What do you put in that genre?

Sarah [01:11:13] I've got so many for you. Okay, first of all, I think it's called The Last Movie Stars. There's a long documentary about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward that I think about, I don't know, once to twice a week. It's so good. It's beautiful. It has awe. It has sex. It has cheating. It has addiction. It has long term companionship. It has a beautiful, long love story. It's so good. When you were talking about it I was thinking about This is 40. Nicholas and I once a week quote the "But I like Spider-Man." Where they have that fight and he's like but I want to see Spider-Man, Paul Rudd and Leslie-- I can't remember the last name. Where she's like, "But I like Spider-Man." It's become short term in our marriage where we're like it's a good little romantic comedy moment where you're like, remember, I'm here too. I want to do things with you. But I like spider man. Listen, Judd Apatow had a run there where he was getting it done. He was capturing what it's like in a long term relationship, in a really fun, awesome way. Where'd he go? Come back, Judd, make us some more movie.

Beth [01:12:19] Yeah, I want more of that. I think you got to have that as part of the romance resurgence. To say like, if it's only 10% in this phase of your relationship, I would like it. I'd like it higher than 10%. Let me put on the record, and I feel that it is higher than 10% in my own relationship in this season. But if wherever you are and whatever that percentage can be, that ceiling on it, how do you find that and how do you do it when you can't rely on the newness that carries that wave of embarrassed, angry, frustrated, but soaring, amazing, all of it?

Sarah [01:12:56] I would also add the original Parenthood from like the 80s with Steve Martin. I watched that again recently. Holds up pretty well. Really great portrayal of marriage even in the thick of having little kids. And, look, the problem with our premise is that it's never going to be the same. I just went to Paris with my husband. It was like 90% while I was there. And then you come home and then you got to deal with the regular old stuff and then some days everybody's got the flu and if you get to 2%, you're lucky. And then you get another break and then maybe you're like sort-- We call it the renaissance of our love when we're in those like kind of romantic comedy moments where you're just really feeling connected and everybody's funny and everybody's loving on each other. But that doesn't last. It's going to ebb and flow. And I think that's the part that I think gets missed a lot in the storytelling. It's that it's not even about the newness or the oldness, that it's just going to ebb and flow because we're humans. But there's something really special about riding out those ebbs and flows with the same person over time. I think that's the problem, though. We don't define that as romance. Romance is the flowers and the great sex and the grand gestures and the boombox over the head.

Beth [01:14:18] Which do all have their place and welcome them for Valentine's Day. The other thing I want to make sure to say, though, is I think romance is a really good springboard for just finding more aliveness generally. I had dinner with a friend last week, and we were at this restaurant where you kind of feel like you're sitting with everyone just because it's small and the tables are so close together.

Sarah [01:14:45] Yes. Can I remind you I just loved Paris. Every restaurant is like that.

Beth [01:14:49] So the table next to us, these four men come sit down. And this is my friend's favorite restaurant. And these four guys are talking to their server and we hear them say they've never been here before. And my friend cannot stand it. She's so excited for them. She leans over, "Oh my God, I'm so happy you're here. You are about to have the best experience. I'm kind of jealous. I wish I could have it again for the first time." And then she starts walking them through the menu and we're just chatting with these guys and they are lovely. And it was like a romantic moment in that sense that you're just like, man, life is beautiful. People are amazing. These are our new friends and we want them to have this delicious meal and this wonderful experience. And we walked off and when we passed the restaurant again walking back to our car later, I was like, "I wish we could run into those guys and just hear how their meal was." So I think having art centered on isn't life fun and beautiful, and aren't those even quick temporary, not at all sexual, connections like the best? I'm for that. I'm for more of that in the mainstream, especially right now.

Sarah [01:15:57] Yeah. I've learned to build more and more of that into my travel. To look for those moments or to set up purposely meeting up with locals that I know live there or finding a connection. Nichollas and I basically went on a blind date with this Parisian couple. I can't remember the last time I went on a blind date because I've realized that is such a part of it, just going is the place-- and listen, I should have listened to Rick Steves all along. He's real big on this. I met this lovely, lovely woman eating breakfast one morning and we talked for like an hour and a half. And, again, props to social media, which I've been pretty down on, we can stay connected. So I think that's what's so beautiful about what Common Ground Pilgrimages does. They do that work for you. They put this group together and you can have all those moments.

[01:16:48] This also seems like a good moment to plug that you and I are going to be doing additional Common Ground Pilgrimages at the end of this year. Speaking of romance, and Valentine's Day, it's going to be about Pride and Prejudice in England in September, so we'll put the link to that in the show notes. Beth will be telling you about hers next week. So lots of romance and connection and loving life on those trips. That's why we're so super excited to be going on more of them this year. We can't wait to hear from all of you about romance, about China. I don't know, whatever. Maybe you went on a trip to China and that's given you some additional perspective on our conversation. I would love to hear that. We'd love to hear from all of you. Even in the tension, even in the difficulty, the Valentine at the beginning of the episode that we love you and all of your feedback makes it better. It's true. So thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We will be back in your ears next week. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.