Reflections on the 20th Party Congress and the Future of Chinese Politics

Please register by December 1st. A Zoom link will be sent to registrants in advance.

This roundtable will bring together a group of leading China experts to reflect on the recent 20th Party Congress and its implications for the future of Chinese politics. Securing an unprecedented third term, President Xi Jinping has consolidated his grip on power, while signaling a growing emphasis on security, a shift away from market-oriented reforms, and a more adversarial approach to foreign relations. Yet there have also been growing undercurrents of popular discontent, amid China’s zero-Covid policy, heavy-handed lockdowns, and slowing economic growth. Does the 20th Party Congress mark a tipping point? How do we understand these changes, and what can we expect next from China’s domestic and foreign policy? Join our group of experts for a lively discussion of the current state of Chinese politics and its evolving role in the world.

Moderator: Prof. Kristen Hopewell, University of British Columbia

Speakers:

• Prof. Manfred Elfstrom, University of British Columbia
• Prof. Diana Fu, University of Toronto
• Prof. Mary Gallagher, University of Michigan
• Prof. Ho-fung Hung, Johns Hopkins University

About the Moderator

Kristen Hopewell is Canada Research Chair in Global Policy in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues, and Co-Director of the Centre for Chinese Research at UBC. She is a Wilson China Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Professor Hopewell is the author of Clash of Powers: US-China Rivalry in Global Trade Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Breaking the WTO: How Emerging Powers Disrupted the Neoliberal Project (Stanford University Press, 2016).

About the Speakers

Manfred Elfstrom is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics, Philosophy, and Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. He is the author of Workers and Change in China: Resistance, Repression, Responsiveness (Cambridge University Press, 2021). He previously served as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Southern California’s School of International Relations and a China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Before entering academia, he worked in the non-profit world, supporting workers’ rights and improved grassroots governance in China.

Diana Fu is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. She is a non-resident fellow at Brookings Institution, a China fellow at the Wilson Center, and a public intellectuals fellow at the National Committee on US-China Relations. She is author of the award-winning Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China (Cambridge University Press, 2018). She has been elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists.

Mary Gallagher is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, where she is also the Director of the Center for Chinese Studies, and a faculty associate at the Center for Comparative Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research. She is the author of numerous books and articles on Chinese politics, including Authoritarian Legality in China: Law, Workers, and the State (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Professor Gallagher has taught at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing and was a Fulbright Research Scholar at East China University of Politics and Law in Shanghai. She has also been a fellow in the public intellectuals program of the National Committee on US-China Relations.

Ho-fung Hung is the Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy at the Sociology Department and the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of the award-winning Protest with Chinese Characteristics (2011) and The China Boom: Why China Will not Rule the World (2016), both published by Columbia University Press. His publications have been translated into seven different languages and received numerous awards. His analyses of the Chinese political economy and Hong Kong politics have been featured or cited in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, BBC News, Die Presse (Austria), The Guardian, Folha de S. Paulo (Brazil), The Straits Times (Singapore), Xinhua Monthly (China), People’s Daily (China), among other publications.

Hosted by: Centre for Chinese Research at the Institute of Asian Research, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA), University of British Columbia