logo
episode-header-image
Dec 2020
56m 44s

Xi's China

YASCHA MOUNK
About this episode
As it recovers from Covid more quickly than other nations, China appears to be stronger than ever. But the world’s next superpower faces enormous challenges of its own. Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College and one of the world’s leading China experts, has spent years writing about them. Behind the country's façade of invincibility, he argues, ... Show More
Up next
Dec 27
Ivan Krastev on 2026
Ivan Krastev is the chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies and Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, IWM Vienna. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Ivan Krastev discuss international reactions to the Trump administration, Europe’ ... Show More
58m 34s
Dec 20
Francis Fukuyama on 2025
Yascha Mounk and Francis Fukuyama look back at this year—and make predictions for 2026. Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University. His latest book is Liberalism and Its Discontents. He is also the author of the “Frankly Fukuyama” column, carri ... Show More
1h 8m
Dec 16
Kelly Born on All the Ways AI Is Changing Politics
Kelly Born is the founding director of the Packard Foundation’s Democracy, Rights, and Governance initiative. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Kelly Born explore how AI could impact democracy and society—and how to respond. If you have not yet signed up for our podca ... Show More
1h 3m
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2022
Made in China
Chinese President Xi Jinping is a product of Mao Zedong’s revolution. On Sunday, he'll become the most powerful Chinese leader since the Communist Party’s founder — and maybe the most powerful person in the world. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Matt Collette ... Show More
26m 6s
Apr 2023
Schell on The Long Arc of US-China and Long Reach of Leninism
How did Xi Jinping’s formative years influence how he views the world today? Veteran China scholar Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations, looks back at decades of writing and working on China, weathering the cycles of the country opening u ... Show More
1h 19m
Apr 2024
The Relationship
Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met on a basketball court in China in 2011 when they were vice presidents. They later toasted each other in Washington. They’ve spent many hours together. Much has changed. Can they hold the center together?  Guest: Minxin Pei, Chinese born professor of ... Show More
32m 43s
May 2024
China’s Fortunes
How the Chinese economic downturn is affecting all kinds of people. How real estate meltdown, with enough unfinished empty apartments to fill the population of Germany, is at the center of it all. How tech entrepreneurs are mysteriously disappearing, and how college graduates don ... Show More
38m 6s
Oct 2022
Xi Jinping Opens a New Chapter for China
<p>Four years ago, Xi Jinping set himself up to become China’s leader indefinitely.</p><p>At last week’s Communist Party congress in Beijing, he stepped into that role, making a notable sweep of the country’s other top leaders and placing even greater focus on national security.< ... Show More
25m 20s
Oct 2021
Red Roulette: It Sucks to be a Chinese Billionaire
Red Roulette, Desmond Shum’s memoir of a fast life, deep in the bowels of Chinese politics, is the bombshell China book of 2021. It tells the story of his rise from an impoverished childhood in cultural revolution-era Shanghai and Hong Kong to his marriage to his social climbing ... Show More
45m 31s
Sep 2021
Is Xi Jinping moving China into a new era of Maoism?
tail spinning
10m 43s