Evan A. Feigenbaum, Vice President for Studies at Carnegie and twice a deputy assistant secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, introduces “Six Crises,” a multi-chapter “video book” that looks at how the United States and China have—in six instances over nearly twenty years—managed to coordinate despite their deep-seated and intensifying strategic rivalry. In this introductory video to the Six Crises project, Feigenbaum evokes Richard Nixon’s 1962 memoir of the same name to explain how and why U.S.-China strategic competition is giving way to what he calls “managed enmity.” He draws from all six chapters of the book to explain lessons learned for today’s crises such as the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In 2003, another viral respiratory illness known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) broke out in China and spread across the world. Tommy Thompson, the former four-term Republican governor of Wisconsin, was secretary of Health and Human Services in the administration of former president George W. Bush. Thompson walked point for the United States with top officials in Beijing, not just to control the outbreak but to establish a suite of biomedical training and joint surveillance activities for combating infectious diseases. Thompson draws lessons from his 2003 coordination with Beijing over SARS for today's coronavirus pandemic.

The coronavirus is not the first public health challenge the United States and China needed to manage. When AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria still wreaked havoc across the world in the early 2000s, Jack Chow, the top health diplomat at the State Department, helped spearhead negotiations to establish and finance the Global Fund to fight these three diseases and managed many of the tough negotiations between the United States and China. Chow explains how he coordinated with Beijing on public health amid other strategic tensions, drawing lessons for today's coronavirus pandemic from his work on these three other diseases.

John Podesta draws lessons from pollutant reduction negotiations to the current coronavirus pandemic. By 2013, hydrofluorocarbons, pollutants more potent than carbon dioxide, had become an international problem for dealing with climate change. Podesta, a former White House Chief of Staff, helped steer the Obama administration’s efforts to coordinate with China—first from outside the administration and then as counselor to the president. Washington and Beijing agreed to wind down the production of HFCs and persuade other countries to join them to combat climate change.

Applying lessons to today's coronavirus pandemic, Mike Leavitt reflects on how the United States dealt with unsafe Chinese food and medical products in 2007 and 2008. As secretary of Health and Human Services in President George W. Bush’s second term, the former three-term Governor of Utah negotiated unprecedented agreements and measures with Beijing. Leavitt worked to open Food and Drug Administration offices in Chinese cities and pre-position U.S. inspectors at Chinese transportation hubs.

Susan Rice was national security advisor to President Obama when an outbreak of deadly Ebola cropped up in West Africa—a disease so deadly that it has had a human death rate as high as 90 percent in some past outbreaks. With Rice as the administration’s point-person, the United States and China agreed to complementary steps aimed not just at forestalling contagion from West Africa, but also at working together in the so-called “hot zone,” with team members from both countries working alongside each other at a Chinese laboratory established in Sierra Leone. She draws lessons learned from that experience for prospective U.S.-China coordination during the current coronavirus pandemic.

In this chapter of “Six Crises,” former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson explains what worked—and what didn't—when coordinating with Chinese counterparts during the 2008 financial crisis. Drawing lessons for the current coronavirus pandemic, he explores how coordination between Washington and Beijing aimed to fight financial contagion, stabilize the markets, and establish the G20.