The German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) cordially invites you to a public panel discussion and book presentation:

What the Struggle for Hong Kong Tells Us About Growing Authoritarianism in China

Under President Xi Jinping, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has charted a path toward greater authoritarian rule. Looking at developments within the PRC and in Hong Kong provides insight into how China’s slide toward authoritarianism is actually occurring. It also reveals how citizens or visitors might experience this slide firsthand.

In this discussion, our experts will analyze the receding freedoms of Hong Kongers, the role of underground historians in China who challenge the party line, and how the art world in Hong Kong is navigating censorship to survive and even flourish in the once open, cosmopolitan city. They will also evaluate the role of technology in codifying and entrenching Beijing’s grip over the lives of Chinese people – those who live within the borders of the PRC and beyond them. In doing so, they will assess what these changes mean for Germany’s policy toward China and how Germany’s scholars, business community, and civil society actors should engage with the more authoritarian China of today.

This discussion is based on Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s upcoming book Vigil: The Struggle for Hong Kong, an updated edition of his earlier work Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink, which will be released in January 2025 by Bui Jones.

Speakers: 
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor’s Professor of History at UC Irvine 
Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author, teacher, and researcher with a focus on China 
Minh An Szabó de Buca, cultural journalist and documentary filmmaker 
Shi Ming, Chinese-German journalist and publicist

Moderator: 
Michael Laha, Senior Research Fellow for China and Technology Policy, DGAP

This event will be held in English.

Please register for the event at events@dgap.org.

Link: 

https://dgap.org/en/events/what-struggle-hong-kong-tells-us-about-growing-authoritarianism-china 

In this piece for the Council on Foreign Relations, I give my quick take on the recently concluded party congress, questioning whether Xi is really as powerful as people make him out to be, or if his omnipresence is a sign of looming weakness. 

One of my favorite parts of working for the Council on Foreign Relations is writing “In Briefs,” which are Q&A-style explainers of a current event. They’re aimed at anyone from high school students facing a term paper to people who’ve been in the field for a long time but weren’t quite sure about a particular topic. 

In this one just published on the cfr.org website, I delve into the tricky issue of what is China’s upcoming party congress, and why it matters. On one level it’s easy to explain: party congresses take place every five years, and at every other congress China gets a new leader. They’re where we find out who will run China for the next five years. But this sort of “explainer” article is actually challenging because one question leads to another and another. Where to begin? When did China start changing leaders every decade? And why has Xi decided to be different? And what position is Xi getting at the congress anyway? Is it a third term as president?

The answer to that one is NO! One key misperception I wanted to lay to rest is the idea that Xi’s most important title is “president.” It’s not–it’s like if Joe Biden were chairman of the Delaware Country Club and so we called him Chairman Biden. That would be ridiculous because that title is an honorary position with no real power. What matters is that Biden is president. So, too, in the Chinese  system is it basically irrelevant that Xi is president. The title “president” just means that Xi is head of state and so he gets a 21-gun salute whenever he goes abroad. That’s it. 

Instead what matters is Xi head of the party: run the party and you run China. And it’s at the forthcoming congress that he gets his third term as general secretary of the party. He also gets his second-most important title: chairman of the Central Military Commission, which essentially means he controls the military. (He gets his third term as president next spring but who cares unless you’re in the gun-saluting business!)

So please read on here. It’s free and it’s part of our public education service at CFR.