CWP alum Isaac Kardon on the China Considered Podcast

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. - China, the US, and the Contest for the Indo-Pacific | China Considered | Hoover Institution

China Considered with Elizabeth Economy is a Hoover Institution podcast series that features in-depth conversations with leading political figures, scholars, and activists from around the world. The series explores the ideas, events, and forces shaping China’s future and its global relationships, offering high-level expertise, clear-eyed analysis, and valuable insights to demystify China’s evolving dynamics and what they may mean for ordinary citizens and key decision makers across societies, governments, and the private sector.

Isaac Kardon is an international security scholar and geoeconomics analyst with over 15 years of experience conducting advanced research and advising senior public- and private-sector leaders. He is a leading American sinologist, specializing in Chinese maritime strategy and industrial policy.

He is adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and has served in a range of academic and analytic roles, most recently as senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Previously, he was assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College (China Maritime Studies Institute), and post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University.

Kardon’s writing has been published in the New York Times, Financial Times, International Security, The China Quarterly, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Naval War College Review. His research has been cited in USTR Section 301 investigations and quoted in major media outlets including The Economist, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal. He has testified six times before the U.S Congress as an expert on Chinese maritime affairs.

His first book, China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order was published by Yale University Press in 2023 and has been reviewed in Foreign Affairs, The Economist, and Foreign Policy. 

His current book project is The Great Red Fleet: How the China Ocean Shipping Company Made China Great Again, telling the story of how Chinese cargo is reshaping the global system.

Photo Credit: https://china-considered.podbean.com/e/china-the-us-and-the-contest-for-the-indo-pacific-china-considered-hoover-institution/