Xi Jinping’s centralization of power, aggressive posturing towards Hong Kong and Taiwan, dangers of a new Cold War, and increasing repression in Xinjiang has put China at a crossroads. How have the Chinese Communist Party and business elites been driving domestic and foreign policy in China? How are they navigating this turbulent and potentially uncertain future?

Victor Shih is an associate professor of political economy at the University of California, San Diego and the Ho Miu Lam Chair in China and Pacific Relations. He has published widely on the politics of Chinese banking policies, fiscal policies, and exchange rates. He was the first analyst to identify the risk of massive local government debt, and is the author of Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation. He is currently engaged in a study of how the coalition-formation strategies of founding leaders had a profound impact on the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party. He is also constructing a large database on biographical information of elites in China.

Barry Naughton is the So Kwan Lok Chair of Chinese International Affairs at the University of California, San Diego. He is one of the world’s most highly respected economists working on China. He is an authority on the Chinese economy with an emphasis on issues relating to industry, trade, finance and China's transition to a market economy. His recent research focuses on regional economic growth in China and its relationship to foreign trade and investment. He has addressed economic reform in Chinese cities, trade and trade disputes between China and the United States and economic interactions among China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Ching Kwan Lee is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is interested in global and comparative issues of work, globalization, political sociology, development of the global south, comparative ethnography, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Africa.

Robert Brenner is Professor Emeritus of History and the director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA.

Register here: https://ucla.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEtcOmhpzkoE9LEUku3L7BXaa2_YMjxNuoc

This is our second panel in the series on “The Political Economy of Rising Authoritarianism”. The panels will provide analytical rigor and historical context rooted in the tradition of political economy to understand contemporary problems of rising authoritarianism and democratic backsliding in a global context.