CWP Eyck Freymann on podcast 'World Class' on How to Prevent a War with China Over Taiwan

Even though China is United States' main global competitor, there has been surprisingly little practical planning in Washington on how the U.S. might respond to aggression against the island of Taiwan by Beijing. Eyck Freymann is trying to change that. He joins Colin Kahl on World Class to discuss his new book, Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China which outlines how the U.S. can integrate its military strength, economic leverage, technological leadership, and diplomatic influence into a single, coherent plan to prevent war.

Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University, where he directs the Allied Coordination Working Group. He is also a non-resident research fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, the Institute of Geoeconomics in Tokyo, and the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College.

His latest book, Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China is available from Oxford Academic Press.

This episode's reading recommendation is "A New Era of U.S.-China Interaction: From Competing to Racing" by Evan S. Medeiros, published on April 17, 2026 in Asia Policy.

If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.

How to Prevent a War with China Over Taiwan

Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University, where he directs the Allied Coordination Working Group. He is also a Non-Resident Research Fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, the Institute of Geoeconomics in Tokyo, and the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College.

Dr. Freymann works on strategies to preserve peace and protect U.S. interests and values in an era of systemic competition with China. He is the author of several books, including the forthcoming Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China (Oxford, 2026), The Arsenal of Democracy: Technology, Industry, and Deterrence in an Age of Hard Choices (Hoover, 2025), and One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World (Harvard, 2021). His scholarly work has appeared in The China Quarterly and is forthcoming in International Security. 

Dr. Freymann comments on bipartisan national security issues in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Economist, War on the Rocks, The Wire China, and The Atlantic, among other venues. 

Before Hoover, Dr. Freymann held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and Columbia. He holds a doctorate from Oxford, masters degrees from Cambridge and Harvard, and a bachelors from Harvard, all in history and China studies.

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