ChinaPower

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Victor Cha joins us to discuss Xi Jinping’s recent visit to North Korea, his first in nearly seven years. He examines what the summit reveals about China’s evolving approach to North Korea, including the absence of any discussion on denuclearization. The conversation also explores North Korea’s growing leverage between China and Russia, the possibility of renewed Trump-Kim diplomacy, and the broader implications for U.S. allies in the region. Victor Cha is President of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Elizabeth Economy examines the key outcomes of China’s Fourth Plenum and what they reveal about Beijing’s evolving economic priorities and push for technological self-reliance ahead of the release of the 15th Five-Year Plan. She discusses China’s strategy in the U.S.-China trade war, including its expanding retaliatory toolkit, rare-earth export controls, and the global pushback triggered by China’s industrial overcapacity. She concludes by assessing how domestic pressures and external frictions will shape China’s policy direction and its economic engagement with the United States over the next few years. Dr. Elizabeth Economy is the Hargrove Senior Fellow and co-chair of the Program on the US, China, and the World at the Hoover Institution. From 2021 to 2023, she served as the senior advisor for China in the Department of Commerce. Dr. Economy was previously at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she served as the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and director for Asia Studies for over a decade.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, John Culver argues that two seemingly contradictory trends define China’s military this year: Xi Jinping’s sweeping purge of senior PLA leaders and the PLA’s rapid transformation into a far more lethal, joint-capable force. He notes unprecedented vacancies on the Central Military Commission and across theater commands—suggesting corruption is the excuse, not the cause—as Xi prioritizes loyalty and faster progress toward his ambitious reform goals. While 2027 isn’t an “invasion deadline,” Culver says the PLA is racing to meet its centennial benchmarks, with September’s parade showcasing a growing nuclear triad, serious investments in undersea warfare, and expanding unmanned aircraft. He cautions that any U.S.-created “hellscape” around Taiwan can be mirrored by China, which can produce equipment that is combat relevant in the Western Pacific at industrial scale. On gray-zone pressure, he casts China’s Coast Guard as a paramilitary tool and says its ability to run a sustained blockade would hinge on complex command-and-control that it hasn’t yet demonstrated in military exercises. Ultimately, Culver emphasizes that there is much about the PLA that remains unknown from the outside as Xi Jinping purposely keeps information opaque. This episode was recorded on October 15, 2025. John Culver is a nonresident senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings. Prior to retiring from the Central Intelligence Agency in 2020, he served since 1985 as an analyst and manager on China, with a particular focus on the People’s Liberation Army. From 2015 to 2018, Culver served as national intelligence officer for East Asia (NIO-EA). He was a founding member of the CIA’s Senior Analytic Service, was in the Senior Intelligence Service, and was a recipient of the CIA’s Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, and the William L. Langer Award for extraordinary achievement in the CIA’s analytic mission.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Ching Kwan Lee joins us to discuss her newly released book Forever Hong Kong: A Global City’s Decolonization Struggle. She reframes the 2019 Hong Kong protests not merely as a fight for democracy, but as the culmination of a two-decade decolonization struggle that sought to redefine the city’s identity, economy, and society. Dr. Lee first explains how Hong Kong experienced double colonization - first under Britain, then under Beijing - each system of rule justified through race, from colonial difference to China’s coercive sameness. Dr. Lee also explores Beijing’s contradictory impulses toward Hong Kong—wanting the city open enough to serve as a global hub yet controlled enough to prevent it from inspiring resistance on the mainland. She explains how this tension led to the imposition of the National Security Law and draws parallels to China’s approaches in Tibet and Xinjiang, while reflecting on what Hong Kong’s experience means for Taiwan and the fading credibility of “One Country, Two Systems.” Her insights in the book challenge familiar narratives and place Hong Kong’s struggle within the wider global conversations about authoritarianism, resistance, and decolonization in the 21st century. Dr. Ching Kwan Lee is a professor in the department of Sociology at UCLA. She is a sociologist working at the intersection of global and comparative issues, including labor, political sociology, global development, decolonization, comparative ethnography, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Africa. She has published three multiple award-winning monographs on contemporary China, including Gender and the South China Miracle, Against the Law, and The Specter of Global China. The trilogy of Chinese capitalism was written through the lens of labor and working-class experiences. Her most recent publications include a short format book titled Hong Kong: Global China’s Restive Frontier, and two co-edited volumes — Take Back Our Future: an Eventful Sociology of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement and The Social Question in the 21st Century: A Global View. Forever Hong Kong: A Global City’s Struggle for Decolonization is her newest monograph.

In this special episode, listen to one of CSIS’s newest podcasts, Echonomics, that investigates how past economic events in Asia continue to impact U.S. policy today. In the 1980s, Japanese companies were snapping up prime New York real estate and Japanese cars lined both Main Street and Wall Street, spiking economic anxiety in the U.S. As a result, Americans and politicians targeted the country, through the destruction of Japanese-made products and heavy tariffs. Today, China finds itself in a similar situation. Ambassador Carla Hills, Bill Reinsch, Craig Allen, Kim Menke, and Don Morrissey discuss the similarities and differences between the anti-Japanese sentiment of the 1980s and the anti-Chinese sentiment of today. Check out other episodes here.

In this special episode, listen to one of CSIS’s newest podcasts, Echonomics, that investigates how past economic events in Asia continue to impact U.S. policy today. After decades of negotiations, promises to open its markets, and convincing the Chinese people of the country’s next step, China officially joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Wendy Cutler, Ambassador Xiangchen Zhang, and Bill Reinsch discuss why China and the world wanted the country to join the WTO and why many have come to regret it. Check out other episodes here.

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Ms. Meia Nouwens and Ms. Veerle Nouwens join us to discuss key takeaways from the recent 2025 IISS Shangri-La Dialogue. They start by discussing the significance of the dialogue as a high-level forum for discussion between governments on issues impacting Asian security and they highlight some of the major topics that countries repeatedly brought up throughout sessions, with cross-regional security, hybrid threats, and uncertainty in the international order as three of the most prominent. They unpack President Macron’s speech, who, they note, is the first European leader who has ever been invited to provide keynote remarks at the dialogue, and describe the emphasis he laid on Europe becoming a more active player in the Indo-Pacific region. Meia and Veerle also discuss the attendance from China’s side and point to the notable absence of Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun. They describe China’s messaging this year as less focused on the United States and instead with a greater emphasis on China’s relationships with regional partners. Similarly, they touch on the variety of current views of China they heard from regional countries during the dialogue, which ranged from viewing China as a cooperative partner, a challenger, and a competitor all to different extents. They describe U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth’s remarks and note they believe he succeeded in providing some reassurance to allies and underscored his emphasis that the U.S. can work more with partners in the region through increased forward deployment of troops, cooperation on defense industrial capabilities, and greater interoperability. Finally, Meia and Veerle describe what they heard from countries as shared challenges in the region that transcend boundaries and emphasized the consensus among many for the US and China to find ways to cooperate with each other despite their disagreements. Ms. Meia Nouwens is a Senior Fellow for Chinese Security and Defense Policy. Meia’s expertise lies in Chinese cross-service defense analysis, China’s defense industry and innovation, as well as China’s regional strategic affairs and international relations. She leads IISS research on China’s Digital Silk Road, and was a co-lead of the China Security Project with the Mercator Institute for China Studies. Prior to commencing at IISS, she worked for the European External Action Service as a policy officer in Taipei, and as a trade analyst in the EU’s delegation to New Zealand. Meia holds a BA Hons in international relations and political science from Macquarie University, a master’s in international relations and diplomacy from Leiden University in conjunction with the Clingendael Institute, and an MPhil in modern Chinese studies from the University of Oxford and Peking University. Ms. Veerle Nouwens is the Executive Director for IISS–Asia. Veerle’s expertise lies in Chinese foreign and defense policy, as well as the wider Indo-Pacific defense and security environment. She plays a key part in organizing the annual IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, provides intellectual direction for IISS research on the Asia-Pacific, and works to enhance the profile of IISS across the region and beyond. Prior to joining the IISS, Veerle worked as Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, where she established the Indo-Pacific Programme and focused on China and Indo-Pacific security, and as a policy officer in the political section of the European Union Delegation in Singapore. Veerle holds a BA Hons in international relations and political science from Macquarie University, a Master’s in international relations and diplomacy from Leiden University in conjunction with the Clingendael Institute, an MPhil in modern Chinese studies from the University of Oxford and Peking University, and has attended a Mandarin semester programme at Tsinghua University.