The Great Reckoning: Western reassessments of China

Economic historian Adam Tooze returns to Sinica fresh from the China Development Forum and his second extended visit to Beijing in under a year. In this wide-ranging conversation, Adam and I cover the 15th Five-Year Plan — what it signals about Beijing’s development priorities and whether it represents a genuine shift away from investment-led growth — and the extraordinary scale of China’s renewable energy buildout, which Adam argues may be bringing us to the global peak of CO2 emissions right now.

They discuss the concept of the “big green state,” why Western analysts keep dancing around the role of the CPC in driving China’s environmental transformation, and what the “Chinamaxxing” phenomenon says about a slow but real reckoning in Western public consciousness. From Europe’s evolving posture toward China — caught between EV anxieties and transatlantic rupture — to China’s role in the Global South’s energy future, the conversation moves through coal transitions, Indonesian nickel zones, African microgrids, and the collapse of the flying geese model.

The episode closes with a frank exchange on the Iran war, the postponed Trump-Xi summit, the stunning political silence on American campuses, and what Beijing is most likely doing: sitting pretty and waiting it out. Adam also offers a preview of his forthcoming book on the energy transition — which turns out to be another massive one — and recommends Tim Sahay and Wang Hui as essential reading.

02:44 – Adam’s Chinese language study: HSK3, the Confucius Institute curriculum, and the joys of chasing characters

09:41 – The jìhuà/guīhuà distinction and what the shift in nomenclature from the 11th Five-Year Plan onward actually signals

12:01 – The 15th Five-Year Plan: green energy tinkering, sci-tech ambitions, and the human development dimension

18:10 – Does Beijing genuinely mean to shift from investment-led growth? Reading “high quality development” and “common prosperity”

22:38 – The Great Reckoning: has Western intellectual and policy consciousness actually moved on China?

29:45 – Environmental authoritarianism, the CPC as mobilizing institution, and why Xi’s “petty bourgeois environmentalism” deserves to be taken seriously

33:39 – Persistent misperceptions of China in Western discourse; the “jaundiced American” trench perspective

39:16 – European neuralgia: EV overcapacity, Ukraine, and whether transatlantic rupture opens a window for China

45:02 – China and the Global South: the end of the flying geese model, African microgrids, Indonesian nickel zones, and BRI record lending

59:32 – Mark Carney’s “age of rupture”: does the framing capture something real, or does it flatter the West?

01:05:18 – What Beijing sees from its windows: Iran, Venezuela, the postponed Trump-Xi summit, and a five-point plan for Chinese hegemony (that won’t happen)

01:14:55 – Preview of Adam’s forthcoming book on the energy transition and the “second world” thesis

Paying It Forward: Tim Sahay (PolyCrisis / Phenomenal World)

Recommendations:

Adam: Wang Hui’s The End of the Revolution

Kaiser: The Chinese series Shēng mìng shù (Born to Be Alive)

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