This is a recording of my October 31, 2025 discussion with Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li about their excellent and important new book The Highest Exam - How the Gaokao Shapes China.

From a synopsis of the book:

In The Highest Exam, authors Ruixue Jia, Hongbin Li, and Claire Cousineau present a sweeping, data-rich account of China’s exam-centered education system — a “centralized, hierarchical tournament” culminating in the Gaokao, a grueling three-day college entrance exam. Drawing on decades of empirical research and lived experience, Jia and Li — both leading economists who took the Gaokao and later taught at top universities in Beijing, Hong Kong, and the U.S. — reveal how this state-managed system shapes education, labor markets, political legitimacy, and social values.

You can buy the book here: The Highest Exam - How the Gaokao Shapes China. It is well-written and priced like a normal book, not an academic one. You can not understand China without understanding the Gaokao system, so this is an important and very useful book.

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This is a recording of my October 30, 2025 conversation with Rush Doshi, the C.V. Starr senior fellow for Asia studies and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and an assistant professor in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.

Rush Doshi was deputy senior director for China and Taiwan on President Joe Biden’s National Security Council (NSC), where he served from 2021 to 2024 and helped manage the NSC’s first China directorate.

During his time in the Biden Administration he worked on multiple Biden-Xi engagements, so I thought he would be a great guest to help us parse through the Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea and what it means for US-China relations. He did not disappoint.

Rush is about to launch a new Substack called “The Great Changes 大变局. You can and should subscribe to it here.

You can catch up with many of Rush’s recent writings and podcast appearances here on his CFR page.

Thanks for watching/listening.

This is a recording of my October 24, 2025 conversation with Chris Johnson, CEO of China Strategies Group and a former top China analyst at the CIA, about the recently concluded Fourth Plenum, and specifically the ongoing purges in the PLA, and US-China relations ahead of next week’s Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea.

Chris wrote a guest piece for Sinocism earlier this week on Xi and succession - Forever Xi Jinping? Perhaps Not.

If you prefer to consume the Sinocism Live episodes as a podcast, please add this URL to the podcast player of your choice:

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This is a recording of my October 16, 2025 conversation with Ambassador Mike Froman Mike Froman about recent developments in the US-China trade war and US-China relations in general. I learned a lot from this conversation and I think you will as well.

Ambassador Froman is president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and has had a distinguished career in the private sector and in public service, including as the head of USTR from June 2013 to January 2017.

He now writes a weekly newsletter called The World This Week, to which I encourage everyone to subscribe.

We also discussed some of his recent writings, including:

After the Trade War: Remaking Rules From the Ruins of the Rules-Based System - Foreign Affairs

China Has Already Remade the International System - Foreign Affairs

China, the United States, and the AI Race | Council on Foreign Relations

Thanks to everyone who watched our chat live.

This is a recording of my October 14, 2025 conversation with Charles Parton about the recent UK-China spy case and UK-China relations in general.

Charles Parton OBE is the Chief Advisor to the China Observatory at the Council on Geostrategy. He spent 22 years of his 37 year diplomatic career working in or on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In his final posting he was seconded to the EU Delegation in Beijing, where, as First Counsellor until late 2016, he focussed on Chinese politics and internal developments, and advised the EU and Member States on how China’s politics might affect their interests.

You can follow Charlie on Substack @ Charles Parton.

Thanks to everyone who watched our chat live.

Thanks everyone for tuning into my live video with afra Wang and Jasmine Sun. We had a great conversation about their recent trip to China, the differing views of AI in the US and China, and the ongoing narrative/vibe shift about China.

I highly recommend their newsletters, and specifically the two essays that prompted this discussion:

Afra Wang - Topology of "China AI"

Jasmine Sun - America Against China Against America

This is a recording from the September 4th live conversation I had with Professor Joseph Torigian about his excellent book on Xi Jinping’s father - The Party's Interests Come First - The Life of Xi Zhongxun, the importance of history to the Party, and to Xi Jinping, and how we might view the recent commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the “Victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War”.

On July 22nd I spoke with Finbarr Bermingham, Brussels-based senior correspondent for the South China Morning Post whose beat includes EU-China relations. He has in a roll with scoops about EU-China relations, including China tells EU it does not want to see Russia lose its war in Ukraine earlier this month.

He explains what to expect from the EU-China summit that convenes July 24th, and how EU-China relations have deteriorated over the last several months.

Apologies, we had some technical difficulties at the start and briefly a few minutes in.

He is active on Substack Notes Finbarr Bermingham

On Wednesday, July 3rd I hosted Robin J Brooks for a discussion about the RMB.

Robin is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and formerly Chief Economist at the IIF and Chief FX Strategist at Goldman Sachs. He writes an excellent and free Substack which I highly recommend.

Some of Robin’s views may be controversial to some, especially his argument that the PRC has more leverage over the US in the trade war because it was the very slight devaluation of the RMB against the USD just after the April 2nd tariff “Liberation Day” that was the proximate cause of the US bond market going “yippy”, which ultimately forced President Trump to back down. We had a good back and forth on that topic.

I learned a lot from the whole conversation and I think you will too. And if you enjoyed it please “like” it and restack it on Substack, and send to your friends and contacts.

Thanks for watching.

On Wednesday June 25th I hosted a discussion with Lisa Hanson and Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners about the China video game market and how Chinese game firms are going global