Take a look around your home. Chances are you have more than one item with the label Made in China. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States did over $574 billion dollar in trade with China in 2023, of which $472.2 billion was in imports to the United States. Today, China is the U.S. third largest trading partner and the country’s second largest source of imports.

The above may seem normal to us living in 2024, but this wasn’t always the case. Indeed, in the 1970s, when the United States first began trading with communist China after several decades, few could have foreseen such a future. In this episode, guest Elizbeth Ingleson reveals the surprising story of how two Cold War foes found common cause in transforming China’s economy into a source of cheap labor. Along the way, we discuss some of the key policy decisions and Chinese and American actors, including the role of U.S. business, that facilitated China’s convergence with the capitalist world.

Check it out the episode here!

Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson is Assistant Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. She is the author of Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade (Harvard University Press, 2024). Ingleson earned her doctorate at the University of Sydney, and held fellowships at Yale University, the University of Virginia, and Southern Methodist University. She currently serves on the editorial board of the journal Cold War History.