This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to talk about the faulty assumptions that American analysts and policymakers continue to make about politics in China — and the flawed policy built on those problematic assumptions. Despite much recent academic research into the behavior of authoritarian states that offer better models for understanding China’s politics, several older and less accurate heuristics persist. Jude deftly skewers these and offers useful approaches to thinking about Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 and the CCP leadership.
4:57: “Collapsism” and China’s political system
10:45: The shortcomings of engagement with China
24:21: “Xi besieged”
34:26: The “hidden reformer” fallacy
Recommendations:
Jeremy: The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease, by Charles Kenny, and The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign Against a Muslim Minority, by Sean R. Roberts.
Jude: Cabin Porn: Inspiration for Your Quiet Place Somewhere, by Steven Leckart and Zach Klein.
Kaiser: Two essays by Thomas Meaney: The canonization of Richard Holbrooke and The limits of Barack Obama’s idealism.
Christian Shepherd on Xinjiang and China's changing ethnic policy
Introducing 'Strangers in China'
‘Mirrorlands’: Ed Pulford on the Sino-Russian border
Trade war economics, with Andy Rothman
Making the world safe for autocracy: Jessica Chen Weiss on what Beijing wants
Matt Sheehan on California's role in U.S.-China relations
The world according to Jeremy Goldkorn
Wealth and Power: Intellectuals in China
China correspondent Emily Feng: From the FT to NPR
Michael Swaine on the ‘China is not an enemy’ open letter
An update on the Hong Kong protests
Searching for roots in China
Military Strategy and Politics in the PRC: A Conversation with Taylor Fravel
Umbrella Revolution 2.0 – or something else? Antony Dapiran on the Hong Kong demonstrations
A voice of reason within the Beltway: Ryan Hass vs. the so-called bipartisan consensus
A student leader 30 years after Tiananmen: Wu’er Kaixi reflects on the movement
China's New Red Guards: Jude Blanchette on China's Far Left
Charlene Barshefsky on Trump’s Trade War
Chinese Investment: Beyond the USA
‘Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy,’ with Sulmaan Wasif Khan
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