China is one of the 21st century’s most consequential nations, and it has never been more important to understand how the country is governed. Pekingology is the podcast that unpacks Chinese politics, the inner workings of the Communist Party, and how China's domestic and foreign policy will impact the world. Pekingology is hosted by Henrietta Levin, Senior Fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. It is produced by Gina Kim.
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Delve into China's complex ties with North Korea, examining discussions on denuclearization at the Trump-Xi summit and Beijing's strategic goals for stability on the Korean Peninsula. The conversation unpacks the actual leverage China holds over Pyongyang and how Russia's increasing military partnership with North Korea is reshaping Beijing's diplomatic approach. It also considers the realistic scope for U.S.-China cooperation and the challenges for American strategy in the region.
In this bonus episode of Pekingology, host Henrietta Levin is joined by Jon Czin to discuss the May 14-15 summit between President Trump and President Xi in Beijing. Henrietta and Jon unpack the personal relationship between Trump and Xi, as well as the full range of issues on the bilateral agenda - Taiwan, technology, trade, the war in Iran, soybeans, and more. Jon previously served as Director for China at the White House National Security Council and a member of the Senior Analytic Service at...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Philip Luck, Director of the CSIS Economics Program and Scholl Chair in International Business. Phil was previously the deputy chief economist at the U.S. Department of State. Phil and Henrietta discuss the economic and commercial context for the big summit between President Trump and President Xi in Beijing, what it means to have “managed trade,” the trajectory of U.S. tariff rates and export controls, and how soybe...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Aaron Glasserman, an expert on China's Middle East strategy and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China. Aaron and Henrietta unpack what China is really trying to achieve in the Middle East, how China is approaching the U.S. war against Iran, and what this all means for the upcoming summit between President Trump and President Xi.
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Eyck Freymann, a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and author of the new book, Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China . Eyck unpacks Beijing’s real goals vis-à-vis Taiwan, how Taiwan fits into the Party’s domestic and international ambitions, and how the United States and its allies can manage the bedeviling challenge of gray zone coercion while also deterring high-end conflict....
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Ben Hillman, Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at Australian National University and co-editor of the new book, The Communist Party of China: Understanding the Durability of the World's Most Powerful Political Organization . Ben explains how the Party has managed to stay in power, becoming the world's second-longest ruling party (barely losing out to North Korea's communist party) and maintainin...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Neil Thomas, Fellow on Chinese Politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. They discuss the significance of China's recent "Two Sessions," where the National People's Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference come together with great pageantry to announce new policies. Neil unpacks the state of China's elite politics and purges, the highlights of the 15th Five-Year...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Zoe Liu, Fellow in China Studies with the Council on Foreign Relations. They discuss Zoe’s new Foreign Affairs piece, China’s Long Economic War: How Beijing Builds Leverage for Indefinite Competition. Zoe offers a new framework for understanding China’s national power, evaluating the country’s evolving capacity, capital, character, and credibility.
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Charlie Edel, Senior Adviser and Australia Chair at CSIS . Charlie unpacks China’s strategy towards Australia, an influential, democratic middle power that maintains strong economic ties to China and a security alliance with the United States. How has Beijing used economic coercion and inducements to try and sway Australian policy? Why has Australian public opinion turned sharply against China? And why has Australia ...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Francisco Urdinez, Associate Professor at the Political Science Institute of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and author of the new book Economic Displacement: China and the End of US Primacy in Latin America . Francisco unpacks China’s strategy in Latin America, how regional countries have experienced China’s growing influence, how Chinese firms are replicating U.S. companies’ playbook from the early 20th...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Sabine Mokry, Postdoctoral Researcher with the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg and author of the new book Chinese Scholars and Think Tanks’ Construction of China's National Interest. Sabine unpacks the process through which outside expertise can shape the Party’s national security concepts, the relevance of Chinese think tanks and scholars in policymaking, and how China –...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Paul Mariani, Professor at Santa Clara University and author of the new book, China’s Church Divided: Bishop Louis Jin and the Post-Mao Catholic Revival . Paul unpacks the Communist Party's views on religion, how the Catholic Church navigated the turbulent politics of 1980's China, and why the Vatican has renewed a controversial deal with Beijing.
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Minxin Pei, author of the new book, "The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism." Minxin traces the evolution of China's political and economic system through the post-Mao era, highlighting key moments in which the Party's efforts to strengthen collective leadership inadvertently planted the seeds of Xi Jinping's eventual power grab. To hear more from Minxin, check out the 2024 episode of Pekingology:...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Philip O’Keefe, Professor of Practice at the University of New South Wales Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research and one of the world's leading experts on demographic trends in China and across Asia. They unpack the rapid aging of Chinese society, exploring the impact of a shrinking population on China's politics, economy, and innovation ecosystem, as well as its trade imbalances and Beijing's global amb...
In this episode of Pekingology , CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Cobus van Staden, Managing Editor of the China Global South Project, host of the China in Africa podcast, and a leading scholar of China–Africa relations. Ahead of the Johannesburg G20 Summit, they unpack China’s Africa strategy as well as China's bilateral ties with South Africa. Henrietta and Cobus discuss Beijing's diplomatic ground game, key trends in Chinese investment and BRI projects in Africa, how China's sl...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Ning Leng, assistant professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy and a Wilson Center China Fellow. They discuss her new book Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China . Henrietta and Ning explore the relationship between politics and business in China, what the Party really wants from Chinese firms, and why a malfunctioning wastewater treatment plant in sou...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Sarah Beran, who managed the U.S.-China relationship in senior roles at the State Department, the American Embassy in Beijing, and the White House National Security Council. Ahead of President Trump's potential meeting with President Xi on the margins of the 2025 APEC Leaders Meeting, Sarah explains how U.S.-China diplomacy and summitry actually work. Sarah unpacks the tough negotiations that set the stage for conver...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Dinny McMahon, Head of China Markets Research at Trivium China, and Andrew Polk, Co-Founder and Head of Economic Research at Trivium China. Dinny and Andrew discuss their new Freeman Chair report, China’s Economic Transition: Debt, Demography, Deglobalization, and Scenarios for 2035 . The conversation unpacks the structural challenges facing China’s economy, why the next decade will be decisive in whether China can e...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Jon Czin, the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and a fellow with the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. Jon is a former member of the Senior Analytic Service at CIA, where he was one of the intelligence community’s top China experts, and he also served as Director for China at the White House National Security Council. Jon and Henrietta discuss his recent China Leadership M...
Pekingology is excited to feature a new CSIS podcast called State of Play, where CSIS experts unpack the biggest geopolitical developments of the week. In this State of Play episode, Henrietta Levin and Rick Rosso discuss the China-India relationship, alongside host Will Todman. President Xi and Prime Minister Modi greeted each other warmly at the SCO summit in China last weekend. But how real is the China-India rapprochement, and what does it mean for the United States?
In this joint episode between Pekingology and the ChinaPower Podcast, CSIS Freeman Chair Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin and co-host CSIS China Power Project Deputy Director and Fellow Brian Hart are joined by Dan Wang to discuss his new book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future . The conversation unpacks China’s monumentalism in its grand engineering projects, the advantages and consequences of building at such scale, China’s push to lead in key technologies, Beijing’s social engineer...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by M. Taylor Fravel, Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They discuss Dr. Fravel's recent Foreign Affairs article, " Is China’s Military Ready for War? What Xi’s Purges Do—and Don’t—Mean for Beijing’s Ambitions ." The conversation unpacks corruption, modernization, and sudden disappearances at the highest levels o...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Jessica Batke, Senior Editor for Investigations at ChinaFile, and Laura Edelson, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University. They discuss Jessica and Laura's new report " The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters ," exploring how the government and internet platforms collaborate on censorship, how tensions between the CCP's political and economic goals play out online, an...
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Dr. Rana Mitter, ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. Henrietta and Rana discuss the relationship between history and politics in today’s China, how memory of the Second World War shapes Beijing’s thinking on Taiwan, the worldview of the next generation of CCP leaders, and more. To learn more about Rana Mitter’s perspectives on China, you can read his recent Foreign Affairs article, "The O...
In this episode of Pekingology, Henrietta Levin, Senior Fellow with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, is joined by Kurt Campbell, former Deputy Secretary of State and President Biden’s “Asia Czar.” He is currently Chairman of The Asia Group and Distinguished Fellow in Diplomacy with the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Henrietta and Kurt discuss how Beijing views American power, the development of U.S. strategy towards China, U.S.-China diplomacy and the characters that sa...
Pekingology is back with all-new conversations hosted by Henrietta Levin, Senior Fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. Tune in on July 10th for our next episode featuring Dr. Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of state and President Biden’s “Asia Czar.”
In this episode from the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Joseph Torigian joins host Bonny Lin to discuss his newly released book, The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian describes the life and struggle of Xi Zhongxun as a party official during the Cultural revolution and specifically the impact he had on the life and political views of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian notes that his book utilizes the story of Xi Zhongxun’s life as a lens to be...
In this episode from The Impossible State, host Victor Cha moderates a discussion with Henrietta Levin, former Deputy China Coordinator for Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of State and former Director for China at the National Security Council, and Dr. Luis Simón, director of the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) School of Governance and the Brussels office of the Elcano Royal Institute. Together, they discuss the Trump administratio...
On this episode from the Trade Guys, Bill Reinsch, Scott Miller, and Andrew Schwartz unpack the Geneva agreement between the U.S. and China to deescalate their trade war. They also look at the US-UK framework agreement and what lessons it offers for other countries looking to negotiate with the Trump administration. Originally aired on May 15, 2025.
In this special episode from the ChinaPower podcast, Mr. Jon Czin joins host Bonny Lin to discuss domestic dynamics and leadership decisionmaking within the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC), including what is currently missing in the conversation within the United States on Chinese politics. Mr. Jonathan A. Czin is the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings Institution and a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center. He is a former member of the Senior Analytic Serv...
