China, The US, And The Contest For The Indo-Pacific

In a new episode of China Considered, Elizabeth Economy widens the lens from Taiwan to the broader Indo-Pacific with Isaac Kardon, a leading scholar of China’s maritime strategy, to examine how the United States and China are coexisting, conflicting, and sometimes confronting each other across the region. Drawing on his recent paper for the Hoover Global Commons project, Kardon explains why he calls China “hyper-sovereigntist”—opposed to conflict in principle but doing next to nothing to prevent it in practice—and lays out Beijing’s three security goals in the region: restoring sovereignty over Taiwan and other claimed territory, weakening America’s military position and alliances, and securing the trade routes and resources it would need to weather a prolonged crisis. The two discuss why the PLA has added no formal overseas bases since Djibouti in 2017, what Xi Jinping’s “Asian security model” amounts to, and how the second Trump administration’s treatment of allies has damaged U.S. credibility even as military cooperation deepens. Kardon also assesses the PLA’s readiness for operations against Taiwan, from cyberattacks and blockades to a full-scale invasion, along with how the Iran war has affected US readiness and whether Russia, Iran, and North Korea would join a conflict. They close with his recommendation of Emily Feng’s Our Hearts Burned for Home: Uyghur Militants in Syria’s Civil War and his advice for President Trump.

Recorded on October 19, 2026.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Isaac Kardon is an international security scholar and China maritime specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He was most recently a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and, before that, an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute. His research covers maritime disputes and the law of the sea, Chinese port investment and shipping, and the PLA’s overseas basing.

Kardon is the author of China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order (Yale University Press, 2023) and co-editor, with Andrew Yeo, of Great Power Competition and Overseas Bases: Chinese, Russian, and American Force Posture in the Twenty-First Century (Brookings Institution Press, 2024). His writing has appeared in International Security, Security Studies, and Foreign Affairs. He holds a PhD in government from Cornell University, an MPhil in modern Chinese studies from the University of Oxford, and a BA in history from Dartmouth College.

RELATED SOURCES

• Isaac Kardon’s website and research
• Isaac B. Kardon, China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order (Yale University Press, 2023). Publisher link.
• Andrew Yeo and Isaac B. Kardon, eds., Great Power Competition and Overseas Bases: Chinese, Russian, and American Force Posture in the Twenty-First Century (Brookings Institution Press, 2024). Publisher link.
• Isaac B. Kardon, “How America Lost Command of the Commons” (Foreign Affairs, June 2026).
• Mentioned in the episode:
  • Isaac B. Kardon, paper on China’s security objectives in the Indo-Pacific for the Hoover Global Commons project (the basis for Liz’s opening questions).
  • Isaac B. Kardon, “China’s Global Maritime Access: Alternatives to Overseas Military Bases in the Twenty-First Century” (Security Studies, 2022). The article Kardon cites on why China has built so few overseas bases.
  • Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Myunghee Lee, and Emir Yazici, “Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression: China’s Changing Strategy in Xinjiang” (International Security, Winter 2019/20). Cited by Kardon on Beijing’s fear of Uyghur fighters abroad.
  • Kardon’s book recommendation: Emily Feng, Our Hearts Burned for Home: Uyghur Militants in Syria’s Civil War (Columbia Global Reports, 2026). Publisher link.
• Related episode:
  • Taiwan: Will China Make Its Move? with Bonnie Glaser (China Considered, October 22, 2026), which Liz references at the beginning of the episode.
  • China in the Arctic: How Real Is the Threat? with Glenn Tiffert (China Considered, October 1, 2026), which Kardon references.