China Beyond Beijing
Study the fundamentals of the behavioral & cultural aspects of China’s government & military forces.
Over ten years after Xi Jinping ascended to China’s most powerful post, the country is in crisis. Economic stagnation, the fallout from “Zero COVID” policies, internal dissent, and hardening global opposition have all weakened China and made it more dangerous to the international order.
China has faced crises before—and emerged stronger. In 1969, China was in ruins, devastated by the excesses of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and on the brink of war with its erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union. Yet Mao and his deputy Zhou Enlai would manage to co-opt an American gambit to open relations with China, emerging from deep isolation to become a rising global power, and fight a war with Vietnam to re-establish its hegemony in Southeast Asia.
Then, in 1989, after a decade of rapid economic growth, China confronted the twin shocks of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the mass protests culminating in the massacre of protesters at Tiananmen Square. Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and his successor Jiang Zemin reversed Chinese fortunes once again, returning China to the path of reform and ascension into the World Trade Organization, while ensnaring the U.S. in an engagement rather than containment policy.
Led by Asia expert and former defense official Dan Blumenthal, this weeklong seminar will examine three major geostrategic hinge-points in China’s history and how Chinese leadership responds to crisis.
Dan Blumenthal on America’s Role in the Pacific
This course is part of our residential Security Studies Program. Fellows participate in morning seminars and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions. Up to 16 fellows will be selected.
Faculty
Daniel Blumenthal
Daniel Blumenthal is the Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for over a decade.
Dan Blumenthal
Dan Blumenthal is the Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for over a decade.
From 2001 to 2004, he served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the Department of Defense. Additionally, he served as a commissioner on the congressionally-mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission since 2006-2012, and held the position of vice chairman in 2007. He has also served on the Academic Advisory Board of the congressional U.S.-China Working Group. Mr. Blumenthal is the coauthor of An Awkward Embrace: The United States and China in the 21st Century (AEI Press, November 2012).
He holds a B.A. from Washington University, an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and a J.D. from Duke Law School.
