In:Sight China with Yan Xuetong  

China is becoming ever more important to global affairs. But political and geopolitical challenges, as well as the covid-19 pandemic, have diminished Europeans’ ability to engage with Chinese thinkers and understand their views and ideas about the world. In this mini-series, Mark Leonard, Janka Oertel, and Alicja Bachulska try to change that by engaging in conversations with some of the best Chinese academics, researchers, writers, and journalists on the topics in Chinese internal debates that matter most to Europeans.  

In this episode we are joined by Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University and one of the world’s most renowned scholars on realism in international relations, to discuss the trajectory of the international order and China’s response to it. What do Chinese leaders mean when they talk about “great changes unseen in a century”? How might China respond to the US strategy of “small yard, high fence”? And what is the role of populism in the emerging global order? 

This podcast was recorded on 16 April 2024.    

The Essence of Interstate Leadership: Debating Moral Realism edited by Yan Xuetong and Fang Yuanyuan 

Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers by Yan Xuetong