Is China’s Military Ready for War?

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 engineering efforts, and much more. Dan Wang is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover History Lab. Previously, he was a fellow at the Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and a lecturer at Yale University’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. From 2017 to 2023, he worked in China as the technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, based in Hong Kong, Beijing, and then Shanghai. For more from Dan Wang, please read his latest piece in Foreign Affairs titled The Real China Model: Beijing’s Enduring Formula for Wealth and Power.

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 of the People's Liberation Army.

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, and how Chinese censorship is changing the internet outside China.

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 Once and Future China: How Will Change Come to Beijing?" as well as his most recent book, China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism.

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 sat on the Chinese side of the table, and more. To learn more about Kurt Campbell’s perspectives on China, you can read his April 2025 Foreign Affairs article, co-authored with Rush Doshi, Underestimating China: Why America Needs a New Strategy of Allied Scale to Offset Beijing’s Enduring Advantages, and his 2016 book, The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia.

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 better understand how the Party works and why both Xi Zhongxun and Xi Jinping believe certain values, such as those of sacrifice and suffering for the greater good, are highly important. He describes how Xi Jinping was viewed positively by his father due to the idea that his son had “eaten more bitterness” than other children, even going as far as to state that Xi Jinping had “the makings of a premier.” Dr. Torigian describes how deeply involved Xi Zhongxun was during his time in the party on the United Front, ethnic policy in Tibet and Xinjiang, and policy towards Taiwan, and how, because of his father’s dedication to these issues, Xi Jinping views them as personal unfinished business. Finally, Dr. Torigian describes how Xi Zhongxun’s influence on his son has left Xi Jinping with a Hobbesian view of the world and with the idea that the Party is the best tool for helping China assert its rightful place in the world and secure its inevitable march towards greatness.

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 administration’s policy toward China, U.S.–China trade relations, the future of U.S. and NATO engagement with China, and more. Originally aired on May 28, 2025.

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.