Beneath Xi Jinping’s grand slogans of a “Chinese dream” and a “shared future for humankind,” there are internal tensions, debates, and competing interests that continue to shape China’s approach to the world. Through the lens of domestic politics, nationalism, and regime insecurity in China, Weiss will examine the evolving and contested landscape of what “China” wants. The talk will conclude with policy implications for the United States, prospects for peaceful coexistence, and the future of international order.

Speaker:

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Jessica Chen Weiss is the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and the inaugural faculty director of the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF) at SAIS. From August 2021 to July 2022, she served as senior advisor to the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department on a Council on Foreign Relations Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars (IAF-TIRS). Weiss is the author of Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations (Oxford University Press, 2014). Her research appears in International Organization, China Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Security Studies, Journal of Contemporary China, and Review of International Political Economy. With commentary in the New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Los Angeles Times, and the Ezra Klein show, Weiss was profiled by the New Yorker and named one of Prospect Magazine's Top Thinkers for 2024. Weiss is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis and previously the Michael J. Zak Professor for China and Asia-Pacific Studies at Cornell University and an assistant professor at Yale University. She founded FACES, the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford University. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, she received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego.

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