A World Safe for Autocracy? The Domestic Politics of Chinese Foreign Policy

Moynihan Institute’s program for the Study of Global Politics welcomes Jessica Chen Weiss from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Beneath Xi Jinping’s grand slogans of a “Chinese dream” and a “shared future for humankind,” there are internal tensions, debates and competing interests that continue to shape China’s approach to the world. Through the lens of domestic politics, nationalism and regime insecurity in China, Weiss will examine the evolving and contested landscape of what “China” wants. The talk will conclude with policy implications for the United States, prospects for peaceful coexistence, and the future of international order. 

Jessica Chen Weiss is the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., and a nonresident senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis. From 2021 to 2022, she served as a senior advisor on the U.S. Department of State's policy planning staff through a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship. She previously held academic positions at Cornell University and Yale University.

Weiss's acclaimed first book, “Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations” (Oxford University Press, 2014), explored the Chinese Communist Party's management of nationalist protests as a tool for balancing domestic control and foreign policy. Her forthcoming book, “A World Safe for Autocracy? The Domestic Politics of China's Foreign Policy” (Oxford University Press), examines how internal politics and regime insecurity shape China's global ambitions and its role in the international order.