'Xi Jinping Thought': China's Post-Communism Ideology
December 2, 2021 — Professor Steve Tsang discusses the core tenets of “Xi Jinping Thought,” what they tell us about how China’s leadership thinks about its role in the world, and how the ideology shifted from a strategy of “peaceful rise” to one of “uninterrupted rise,” with Asia Society Switzerland's Nico Luchsinger. (54 min., 19 sec.)
Professor Steve Tsang is Director of the SOAS China Institute, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London. He is also an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College at Oxford, and an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). He previously served as the Head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies and as Director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham. Before that he spent 29 years at Oxford University, where he earned his D.Phil. and worked as a Professorial Fellow, Dean, and Director of the Asian Studies Centre at St Antony’s College. Professor Tsang regularly contributes to public debates on different aspects of issues related to the politics, history, foreign policy, security and development of the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and East Asia more generally. He is known in particular for introducing the concept of 'consultative Leninism' as an analytical framework to understand the structure and nature of politics in contemporary China. He has a broad area of research interest and has published extensively, including five single authored and thirteen collaborative books. One of his latest publications is an article Party-state Realism: A Framework for Understanding China’s Approach to Foreign Policy, in the Journal of Contemporary China (2020), and his current research project is on ‘The Political Thought of Xi Jinping’.