logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2023
49m 24s

Who will run the world in 20 years?

Bbc World Service
About this episode

At the end of a friendly meeting in Moscow, President Xi of China told President Putin of Russia that they are driving changes in the world the likes of which have not been seen for a century.

Meanwhile this week President Biden kicked off a Summit for Democracy with $690m funding pledge to democracies all over the world and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, called on Europe to reassess its diplomatic and economic relations with China before a visit to Beijing next week.

So what changes are President Xi talking about? Who will be running the world in 20 years time? Is conflict between rival powers inevitable? And is the model of western liberal democracy in decline?

Owen Bennett-Jones is joined by:

Evelyn Farkas - an American national security advisor, author, and foreign policy analyst. She is the current Executive Director of the McCain Institute, a nonprofit organisation focused on democracy, human rights, and leadership. Evelyn served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia under President Obama

Martin Wolf - chief economics commentator at the Financial Times and author of The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

Professor Steve Tsang - political scientist and historian and Director of the China Institute at the SOAS University of London

Also featuring:

Henry Wang - founder and director of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a think tank with links to the Chinese Communist Party

Nathalie Tocci - director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and an honorary professor at the University of Tübingen

Photo: Russia's Putin holds talks with China's Xi in the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023 / Credit: Reuters

Produced by Rumella Dasgupta and Pandita Lorenz

Up next
Mar 2024
Bonus: Evan Gershkovich - a year since my friend was jailed in Russia
The Wall Street Journal reporter, who is the first US journalist charged with spying in Russia since the Cold War, has now been imprisoned for a year. His detention has been repeatedly extended and he is yet to face trial. His family, colleagues and the US government vehemently d ... Show More
24m 27s
Mar 2024
Is the future of journalism in crisis?
Over the past year thousands of journalists have lost their jobs as mass media news organisations struggle to make ends meet. Ad revenue is down, many publishers are struggling to gain subscribers, and social media has resulted in plummeting traffic to homepages. More than a thir ... Show More
48m 55s
Mar 2024
Bonus: Hidden reality of frontline combat through the eyes of Ukraine's soldiers
A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast.In a new BBC documentary, a single Ukrainian infantry company find themselves in a life or death battle to defend the eastern front against intense Russian attacks.Jamie Roberts tells us how he managed to get such rare access and what ... Show More
26m 40s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2022
Changing China
How will shifts in China's economic policies affect global commerce? The nation is the world's second-biggest economy and it's been the centre of globalised manufacturing for over three decades. But after a global pandemic, an energy crisis and now war in Ukraine, is this going t ... Show More
28m 58s
Apr 2023
Chine-Russie: quelle vision du monde?
On ne cesse de s’interroger sur la relation qu’entretiennent la Chine et la Russie… particulièrement depuis le début de la guerre d’Ukraine. Les déclarations récentes de l’ambassadeur de Chine en France ont ajouté au trouble, alors que Lu Shaye contestait devant nos confrères de ... Show More
50 m
Jul 2012
China's Battle of Ideas
As China changes leadership, Mukul Devichand probes Beijing's hidden battle of ideas. Unlike the messy democracy of elections in the US or Europe, the Communist Party's "changing of the guard" this autumn is set to be a sombre, orderly and very Chinese affair. But the dramatic sa ... Show More
28m 14s
Dec 2022
RUSSIA | S07 E6 - How will the war against Ukraine end?
After ten months of war, a few likely outcomes of the war in Ukraine are emerging. A win for Vladimir Putin. A win for Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A bitter frozen conflict.  Neither Putin or Zelenskyy will sign a peace agreement and admit defeat.  But what if Putin’s regime ends? Guests ... Show More
30m 56s
Mar 2021
March 21, 2021 | On GPS: Top U.S. officials had wars of words this week with their Russian and Chinese counterparts. What’s next for those already difficult relations?
Airdate March 21, 2021: Fareed offers his Take on America’s already bloated defense budget and why the administration may use China to justify asking for even more money.  Then, he talks to an all-star panel about President Biden affirming he thinks Putin is a “killer” and the un ... Show More
39m 39s
Mar 2022
Fareed Zakaria Has a Better Way to Handle Russia — and China
“Russia’s utterly unprovoked, unjustifiable, immoral invasion of Ukraine would seem to mark the end of an era,” writes Fareed Zakaria, “one that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.”Many of us, myself included, grew up in that era. We came of age in a unipolar world, d ... Show More
1h 5m
Jan 2023
There’s Been a Revolution in How China Is Governed
There are few stories that are more crucial to the world’s future than what’s happening in China. Take any of the most important issues of our time — climate change, geopolitics, the global economy, advanced technologies — and China is at the center of them. American politics its ... Show More
1h 19m
Mar 2023
China, Russia and the Risk of a New Cold War
As Xi Jinping, China’s leader, meets with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow this week, Chinese officials have been presenting his trip as a mission of peace. But American and European officials are watching for something else altogether — whether Mr. Xi will add fue ... Show More
23m 18s
Oct 2022
The Economist Asks: Where will Xi Jinping take China next?
During his decade-long reign in China, Xi Jinping has amassed more power and wielded it more ruthlessly than any leader since Mao Zedong. At the upcoming Chinese Communist Party congress, Xi is expected to secure an unprecedented third term as leader. Host Anne McElvoy asks Kevin ... Show More
22m 56s