The Xi Jinping Effect

Hosted by the Contemporary China Centre, University of Westminster

Panel Description

Without a political successor in sight, China’s paramount leader Xi Jinping carries the torch for a political agenda that has touched many aspects of Chinese political and social life. Xi’s decade as China’s leader has contributed to poverty alleviation, suppression of political freedom in Hong Kong, a reduction in corruption among officials, repression of non-Han peoples in Xinjiang and Tibet, the expansion of development beyond China’s borders via the Belt and Road Initiative, military reform and restructuring, reemphasis on “United Front” work to win hearts and minds overseas, and the hardening of claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea and Taiwan. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence of an acceptance of Xi’s political hegemony: ethnic minorities, religious groups, and even corporations are growing accustomed to playing by Xi’s new formal and informal rules. Named after the recently published book (University of Washington Press, 2024) of the same title, this panel asks, what of these changes are, in fact, a Xi Jinping effect, and which need to be seen as longer-term developments?

Following an introduction by one of the book’s editors (Han), speakers will approach the question from the perspective of internal migration (Chan), international relations (Womack), and religion (Wielander).

The event is free and open to all. The Zoom link will be sent to all those who have registered by 10 December. 

Speakers

Alexsia T. Chan is associate professor of government at Hamilton College. She is the author of Beyond Coercion: The Politics of Inequality in China (forthcoming).

Rongbin Han is associate professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia. He is author of Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expres-sion and Authoritarian Resilience (2018) and coauthor of Directed Digital Dissidence in Autocracies: How China Wins Online (2023).

Brantly Womack is senior faculty fellow at the Miller Center and emeritus professor of foreign affairs at the University of Virginia. His publications include Recentering Pacific Asia: Regional China and World Order (2023), Asymmetry and International Relationships (2016), China among Unequals: Asymmetric Foreign Relationships in Asia (2010), and China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry (2006).

Gerda Wielander is professor of Chinese studies at the University of Westminster. She is author of Christian Values in Communist China (2013) and co-editor of Chinese Discourses on Happiness (2018). She is Director of the Contemporary China Centre at Westminster and editor of a new books series cultural china.

Roland Dannreuther (chair) is professor of international relations at the University of Westminster. His books include China, Oil and Global Politics (2011), International Security: the Contemporary Agenda (2013), and Energy Security (2017).