China 21

In this episode, recorded in November 2025, Victor Shih sits down with Sarah Beran to discuss key developments in U.S.-China relations and how the relationship has evolved and may continue to evolve in the second Trump administration.

Center Executive Director Lei Guang recently sat down with Tyler Jost to discuss his new book, Bureaucracies at War. This podcast features highlights from their conversation, focusing on how Jost’s analysis sheds light on the dynamics of today’s U.S.-China tensions.

In this episode, UC San Diego Professor Barry Naughton talks globalization and economic development in China, Russia and India with Temple Professor Roselyn Hsueh.

21CCC Assistant Director Harris Doshay sits down with Syracuse Associate Professor and UCSD Alum Dimitar Gueorguiev to discuss his latest book, Retrofitting Leninism. In it, they explore the logic of popular participation in authoritarian regimes and the ongoing struggles faced by the CCP.

Susan Shirk, Chair of the 21st Century China Center, and former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam sit down to discuss the ways the China Initiative, from flaws in its inception to views towards the future of DOJ espionage prosecutions.

Micah Muscolino interviews James Millward, a leading scholar on China and Central Asia at Georgetown University. They connect the history of Xinjiang in the Qing Empire, to assimilationist policies and terrorism of the 2000s, and to present day large-scale repression and cultural genocide of Uighurs under Xi Jinping. This episode is adapted from the China Throughlines web series, which features UC San Diego’s China historians in conversation with their colleagues on the echos and connectedness of China’s storied past to the twenty-first century. James A. Millward is Professor of Inter-societal History at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, teaching Chinese, Central Asian and world history. He also teaches as invited professor in the Máster Oficial en Estudios de Asia Oriental at the University of Granada, Spain. His specialties include Qing empire; the silk road; Eurasian lutes and music in history; and historical and contemporary Xinjiang. He follows and comments on current issues regarding the Uyghurs and PRC ethnicity policy. His publications include The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (2013), Eurasian Crossroads: a History of Xinjiang (2007), New Qing Imperial History: the Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde (2004), and Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity and Empire in Qing Central Asia (1998).Micah Muscolino is Professor and Paul G. Pickowicz Endowed Chair in Modern Chinese History at UC San Diego. His research focuses on the environmental history of modern China. His first book, Fishing Wars and Environmental Change in Late Imperial and Modern China (2009), explored the environmental history of China’s most important marine fishery/ His second book The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938-1950 (2015) engaged with the historiography of war and militarization in modern China and the interdisciplinary scholarship on war and the environment in world history. He received his B.A. from UC Berkeley (1999) and Ph.D. from Harvard University (2006).Web series host: Micah Muscolino, UC San Diego
Editor: Samuel Tsoi, UC San Diego  Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project

This episode is an extended interview adapted from the China Throughlines web series, which features UC San Diego’s China historians in conversation with their colleagues on the echos and connectedness of China’s storied past to the twenty-first century.Mary Augusta Brazelton is University Lecturer in Global Studies of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Cambridge. Her book, Mass Vaccination: Citizens' Bodies and State Power in Modern China, examines the history of mass immunization in twentieth-century China. She earned her PhD in History from Yale University and have taught at Tufts University.Micah Muscolino is Professor and Paul G. Pickowicz Endowed Chair in Modern Chinese History at UC San Diego. His research focuses on the environmental history of modern China. His first book, Fishing Wars and Environmental Change in Late Imperial and Modern China, explored the environmental history of China’s most important marine fishery/ His second book The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938-1950  engaged with the historiography of war and militarization in modern China and the interdisciplinary scholarship on war and the environment in world history. He received his B.A. from UC Berkeley (1999) and Ph.D. from Harvard University (2006).Web series host: Micah Muscolino, UC San Diego
Editor: Samuel Tsoi, UC San Diego  Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project

The 21st Century China Center is premiering a new web series: "China Throughlines" - featuring UC San Diego’s China historians in conversation with their colleagues on the echos and connectedness of China’s storied past to the twenty-first century. In this audo excerpt from the pilot episode, Paul Pickowicz interviews Perry Link, esteemed cross-disciplinary China scholar and translator of the Tiananmen Papers. The memory of the tragic and pivotal date of June 4th 1989 or simply 六四, is still the subject of intense debate, censorship, and protest - especially in Hong Kong. Web series host: Paul Pickowicz, UC San Diego
 Editor: Samuel Tsoi, UC San Diego 
 Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project

Since the novel coronavirus outbreak in the megacity of Wuhan in December 2019, lockdowns were also implemented across China’s vast countryside, home to more than 700 million people.Dr. Scott Rozelle, senior fellow at Stanford University FSI and co-director of the Rural Education Action Program, presents his latest study to assess the effects of local and nationwide disease control measures on the economy, social life and health of China’s rural population.This was recorded from a May 6th webinar, to view the full presentation, visit china.ucsd.edu or via YouTubeWebinar moderator: Victor Shih, UC San Diego
Editor/Host: Samuel Tsoi, UC San Diego  Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project

As we are living through a historic pandemic and ever more turbulent U.S.-China relations, we revisit a conversation recorded at our last public lecture right before the lockdown. 21st Century China Board Chair James Kralik interviews investor and best-selling author Weijian Shan about his memoir of living through the trauma and turmoil of Mao’s Cultural Revolution to become one of Asia’s most successful financiers, and how to move forward on constructive U.S.-China relations.Watch Shan’s full presentation for the So Kwan Lok Distinguished Lecture series on china.ucsd.eduWeijian Shan is chairman and CEO of PAG, a private equity firm. Prior to PAG, he was a partner of TPG and co-managing partner of TPG Asia. He led a number of landmark transactions including the acquisitions of Korea First Bank and China’s Shenzhen Development Bank, both of which made his investors billions of dollars in profits and were made into case studies of Harvard Business School. He holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from the Univer­sity of San Francisco.James Kralik is the board chair for the 21st Century China Center. He is Managing Director of Linden Street Capital Ltd. and a Director of Milestone Capital Investment Holdings Ltd. Over the last fifteen years, these investment vehicles have been involved with a number of leading Chinese businesses in the alternative energy, advertising media, and consumer sectors. Based in Shanghai, Kralik began his career at McKinsey & Company and has lived and worked in China for nearly thirty years.Editor/Host: Samuel Tsoi, UC San Diego 
Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project