As it recovers from Covid more quickly than many other nations, China appears to be stronger than ever. But the world’s next superpower faces enormous challenges of its own. Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College and one of the world’s leading China experts, has spent years writing about them. Behind the country's façade of invincibility, he argues, lies “a Leninist state in an advanced stage of decay”.

In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Minxin Pei trace the country's political evolution since the 1980s and debate whether Xi Jinping is cementing the party's power—or may unwittingly be seeding the roots of its own demise.

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Email: goodfightpod@gmail.com

Twitter: @Yascha_Mounk

Website: http://www.persuasion.community

Podcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca Rashid