I sat down with China watcher Carla Freeman (US Institute of Peace) to explore this thing Xi Jinping announced last year called the “Global Security Initiative,” which turned into a larger discussion about how China thinks about security and international order generally.
The catalyst was a piece she wrote with Alex Stephenson, which I found very useful because I frequently discount CCP rhetoric, especially about security issues.
We get into:
What China’s “relational” thinking about world politics really means in practice
How Chinese security thinking affects the global South
How US choices affects Sino-Russian ties
How Made in China 2025 looks in hindsight
The aspects of international order China likes most
This turned out to be a delicious conversation. Patrons of the newsletter can listen to it here now, ahead of its release on all the podcast platforms next week.
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