Sinocism Live

This a recording of a March 17 live conversation I had with Demetri Sevastopulo, US-China correspondent for the Financial Times. You can read all his recent FT stories here, and subscribe to him on Substack @ Demetri Sevastopulo

We had a fascinating conversation about US-China relations, now and in Trump’s first term, when he was Washington Bureau Chief, for the FT, Trump’s delayed China trip and why it may be delayed longer than 5-6 weeks, Taiwan, and the visit later this week to Washington by Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi.

Thank you to Demetri and everyone who tuned in live, and apologies for the brief technical glitch at the start.

Thank you Inês Carrières, LeftieProf, scott murphy, Andrew Polk, Dan Houghton, and many others for tuning into my live video with Tara Palmeri!

Thanks everyone who tuned into my live video with Drew Thompson. Drew is now based in Singapore as a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University.

From 2011-2018 he was the Director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In 2012 he planned and organized a visit to the US of a delegation led by then-Defense Minister General Liang Guanglie. Zhang Youxia was part of the delegation.

We had a great discussion about his personal experience shepherding Zhang Youxia around the US many years ago, his work on US-China military-to-military relations, and the disappearance in 2023 of South China Morning Post reporter Minnie Chan.

Drew wrote about his experience with Zhang in the excellent The demise of Zhang Youxia hits different. You can and should subscribe to him @ Drew Thompson

Thanks.

This is a recording of my November 20, 2025 discussion with Sheena Chestnut Greitens ( Sheena Chestnut Greitens), Isaac B. Kardon (CHINA: Threat or Menace on Substack), and Cameron Waltz about their excellent and important new paper China’s Foreign Police Training: A Global Footprint - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

I learned a lot from the paper and the conversation, and we had a good discussion at the end about whether or not China is using this security cooperation and training to export its governance model.

From the summary of the paper:

Global outreach by China’s internal security agencies is expanding. As China’s Global Security Initiative externalizes a concept of security focused on domestic stability and regime protection, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has increased its efforts to train and build capacity among foreign law enforcement and internal security forces around the world, including across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Foreign police training is one of the most concrete and measurable outcomes associated with the Global Security Initiative, as President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders have publicly committed to training thousands of foreign security officers in multiple high-profile appearances.

This paper examines China’s foreign police, security, and paramilitary training from 2000 to 2025. It draws on an original new dataset of nearly 900 trainings provided to at least 138 countries and places these trainings in the wider context of Chinese soft power, foreign policy objectives and projects such as the Global Security Initiative, broader patterns of Chinese security engagement, and Beijing’s narratives about China’s role as a global security provider.

You can read the whole paper here.

Earlier this year they published A New World Cop on the Beat? China’s Internal Security Outreach Under the Global Security Initiative.

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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.

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 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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You can also listen to it in the app:

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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