Accessibility links

Breaking News

Podcast: What Xi Jinping Did -- And Didn't -- Learn From The Collapse Of The Soviet Union


China's Xi Jinping waves after introducing the members of the Chinese Communist Party's new Politburo Standing Committee, the country's top decision-making body, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 23, 2023.
China's Xi Jinping waves after introducing the members of the Chinese Communist Party's new Politburo Standing Committee, the country's top decision-making body, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 23, 2023.

This is the final episode of the Talking China In Eurasia’s season. We’ll be going on hiatus while we decide what to do next with the podcast and YouTube show.

Listen and follow Talking China In Eurasia

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | YouTube

Slow growth and falling foreign investment have helped bring the fast-paced boom years of the 1990s and 2000s to an end in China, posing a major challenge to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

While it marks a significant turnaround for the country, this moment didn't happen overnight and it has its roots in an unlikely spot: China's complicated relationship with the Soviet Union.

But what do the fall of the Soviet Union and China's slowing economy have in common? The answer is more than you might think.

For decades, China's leaders focused on opening markets and growing the economy. But Xi has put ideological commitment, national security, and Communist Party control at the center of Chinese policy amid fears that slipping political control -- like in the later years of the U.S.S.R. -- could usher in an era of instability.

While this has allowed Xi to silence and eliminate his critics, many economists say it kneecapped the private sector that propelled China's extraordinary growth over the last 30 years.

On the latest episode of Talking China In Eurasia, host Reid Standish is joined by Tufts University's Chris Miller, the National Bureau for Asian Research's Nadege Rolland, and the Atlantic Council's Niva Yau to explore why the lessons Xi learned from the collapse of the Soviet Union are influencing how he rules the country today.

Listen to the full episode here:

What China's Xi Learned From The Soviet Collapse
please wait

No media source currently available

0:00 0:25:53 0:00

Background Reading:

  • 16x9 Image

    Reid Standish

    Reid Standish is an RFE/RL correspondent in Prague and author of the China In Eurasia briefing. He focuses on Chinese foreign policy in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and has reported extensively about China's Belt and Road Initiative and Beijing’s internment camps in Xinjiang. Prior to joining RFE/RL, Reid was an editor at Foreign Policy magazine and its Moscow correspondent. He has also written for The Atlantic and The Washington Post.

  • 16x9 Image

    Katie Toth

    Katie Toth is an audio producer and journalist researching the impact of border security on human rights. Her work has been featured on NPR and the CBC and in Foreign Policy and Vice.

About The Newsletter

In recent years, it has become impossible to tell the biggest stories shaping Eurasia without considering China’s resurgent influence in local business, politics, security, and culture.

Subscribe to this weekly dispatch in which correspondent Reid Standish builds on the local reporting from RFE/RL’s journalists across Eurasia to give you unique insights into Beijing’s ambitions and challenges.

To subscribe, click here.

RFE/RL has been declared an "undesirable organization" by the Russian government.

If you are in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine and hold a Russian passport or are a stateless person residing permanently in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine, please note that you could face fines or imprisonment for sharing, liking, commenting on, or saving our content, or for contacting us.

To find out more, click here.

XS
SM
MD
LG