Pekingology

In this joint episode between Pekingology and the ChinaPower Podcast, CSIS Freeman Chair Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin and co-host CSIS China Power Project Deputy Director and Fellow Brian Hart are joined by Dan Wang to discuss his new book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future. The conversation unpacks China’s monumentalism in its grand engineering projects, the advantages and consequences of building at such scale, China’s push to lead in key technologies, Beijing’s social engineering efforts, and much more. Dan Wang is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover History Lab. Previously, he was a fellow at the Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and a lecturer at Yale University’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. From 2017 to 2023, he worked in China as the technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, based in Hong Kong, Beijing, and then Shanghai. For more from Dan Wang, please read his latest piece in Foreign Affairs titled The Real China Model: Beijing’s Enduring Formula for Wealth and Power.

In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by M. Taylor Fravel, Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They discuss Dr. Fravel's recent Foreign Affairs article, "Is China’s Military Ready for War? What Xi’s Purges Do—and Don’t—Mean for Beijing’s Ambitions." The conversation unpacks corruption, modernization, and sudden disappearances at the highest levels of the People's Liberation Army.

In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Jessica Batke, Senior Editor for Investigations at ChinaFile, and Laura Edelson, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University. They discuss Jessica and Laura's new report "The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters," exploring how the government and internet platforms collaborate on censorship, how tensions between the CCP's political and economic goals play out online, and how Chinese censorship is changing the internet outside China.

In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Dr. Rana Mitter, ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. Henrietta and Rana discuss the relationship between history and politics in today’s China, how memory of the Second World War shapes Beijing’s thinking on Taiwan, the worldview of the next generation of CCP leaders, and more.  To learn more about Rana Mitter’s perspectives on China, you can read his recent Foreign Affairs article, "The Once and Future China: How Will Change Come to Beijing?" as well as his most recent book, China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism.

In this episode of Pekingology, Henrietta Levin, Senior Fellow with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, is joined by Kurt Campbell, former Deputy Secretary of State and President Biden’s “Asia Czar.” He is currently Chairman of The Asia Group and Distinguished Fellow in Diplomacy with the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Henrietta and Kurt discuss how Beijing views American power, the development of U.S. strategy towards China, U.S.-China diplomacy and the characters that sat on the Chinese side of the table, and more. To learn more about Kurt Campbell’s perspectives on China, you can read his April 2025 Foreign Affairs article, co-authored with Rush Doshi, Underestimating China: Why America Needs a New Strategy of Allied Scale to Offset Beijing’s Enduring Advantages, and his 2016 book, The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia.

Pekingology is back with all-new conversations hosted by Henrietta Levin, Senior Fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. Tune in on July 10th for our next episode featuring Dr. Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of state and President Biden’s “Asia Czar.”

In this episode from the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Joseph Torigian joins host Bonny Lin to discuss his newly released book, The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian describes the life and struggle of Xi Zhongxun as a party official during the Cultural revolution and specifically the impact he had on the life and political views of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian notes that his book utilizes the story of Xi Zhongxun’s life as a lens to better understand how the Party works and why both Xi Zhongxun and Xi Jinping believe certain values, such as those of sacrifice and suffering for the greater good, are highly important. He describes how Xi Jinping was viewed positively by his father due to the idea that his son had “eaten more bitterness” than other children, even going as far as to state that Xi Jinping had “the makings of a premier.” Dr. Torigian describes how deeply involved Xi Zhongxun was during his time in the party on the United Front, ethnic policy in Tibet and Xinjiang, and policy towards Taiwan, and how, because of his father’s dedication to these issues, Xi Jinping views them as personal unfinished business. Finally, Dr. Torigian describes how Xi Zhongxun’s influence on his son has left Xi Jinping with a Hobbesian view of the world and with the idea that the Party is the best tool for helping China assert its rightful place in the world and secure its inevitable march towards greatness.

In this episode from The Impossible State, host Victor Cha moderates a discussion with Henrietta Levin, former Deputy China Coordinator for Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of State and former Director for China at the National Security Council, and Dr. Luis Simón, director of the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) School of Governance and the Brussels office of the Elcano Royal Institute. Together, they discuss the Trump administration’s policy toward China, U.S.–China trade relations, the future of U.S. and NATO engagement with China, and more. Originally aired on May 28, 2025.

On this episode from the Trade Guys, Bill Reinsch, Scott Miller, and Andrew Schwartz unpack the Geneva agreement between the U.S. and China to deescalate their trade war. They also look at the US-UK framework agreement and what lessons it offers for other countries looking to negotiate with the Trump administration. Originally aired on May 15, 2025.

In this special episode from the ChinaPower podcast, Mr. Jon Czin joins host Bonny Lin to discuss domestic dynamics and leadership decisionmaking within the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC), including what is currently missing in the conversation within the United States on Chinese politics. Mr. Jonathan A. Czin is the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings Institution and a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center. He is a former member of the Senior Analytic Service at CIA, where he was one of the intelligence community’s top China experts. From 2021 till 2023, he was director for China at the National Security Council, where he advised on, staffed, and coordinated White House and inter-agency diplomacy with the People’s Republic of China, including all of President Biden’s interactions with President Xi, and played a leading role in addressing a wide range of global China issues. He also served as advisor for Asia-Pacific security affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and overseas at a CIA field station in Southeast Asia. Original interview published on October 31, 2024.

In this special episode from China Field Notes from CSIS, host Scott Kennedy speaks with Chen Dongxiao, the President of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS). He discusses how China's shifting role to the center of global politics and economics has shaped his career, and he offers a frank assessment of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship during the late-Biden and early Trump administrations. The discussion concludes with a strong defense of the value of U.S.-China track-2 dialogue for thinking creatively about the world's most important challenges and offering reforms to global institutions. Original interview published on April 3, 2025.

In this special episode from The Truth of the Matter from CSIS, host Andrew Schwartz speaks with Scott Kennedy, CSIS senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, to discuss the latest in the U.S.-China trade war, including China’s technological capabilities, new export controls, and the possibility of future decoupling. Original interview published on April 17, 2025.

In this episode of Pekingology from January 2023, Freeman Chair Jude Blanchette is joined by Martin K. Dimitrov,  a professor of political science at Tulane University, to discuss his recent book, ‘Dictatorship and Information’: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China.

In this episode of Pekingology which aired in February 2022, Jude Blanchette is joined by Xuezhi Guo, the Lincoln Financial Professor of Political Science at Gilford College, to discuss his book, The Politics of the Core Leader in China: Culture, Institution, Legitimacy, and Power.

In this episode of Pekingology from June 2022, Jude Blanchette is joined by Victor Shih, associate professor and Ho Miu Lam Chair in China and Pacific Relations at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego. They discuss his book, Coalitions of the Weak: Elite Politics in China from Mao’s Stratagem to the Rise of Xi.

In this episode of Pekingology which aired on July 6, 2023, Freeman Chair Jude Blanchette is joined by Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a fellow for international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the book Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions.

In this episode of Pekingology from March 2023, Freeman Chair Jude Blanchette is joined by Dr. Lynette H. Ong, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, jointly appointed to the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy’s Asian Institute and also a Faculty Fellow at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. They discuss her recent book Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China.

With the removal of the only term limit on office in March 2018, Xi Jinping stands to rule indefinitely. But what happens if he suddenly dies in office? How will China's political and economic system respond? In this episode from September 2020, Jude Blanchette is joined by Michigan State University's Erica Frantz to discuss her co-authored paper, "When Dictators Die."

In this episode of Pekingology which originally aired on June 17, 2021, Freeman Chair in China Studies Jude Blanchette is joined by Wang Yuhua, the Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University, to discuss how rulers in Imperial China maintained -- and lost -- political power.

In this episode of Pekingology, originally released on April 8, 2021, Freeman Chair Jude Blanchette is joined by Jessica Teets, then an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at Middlebury College (now Professor at Middlebury College and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Chinese Political Science), to discuss her work on China's evolving governance system.