The Great Power Show

How does China think about the world?We spend a lot of time trying to decode Beijing’s behaviour—its strategy, its ambitions, its moves on the global stage. But we rarely ask a more basic question: where does that thinking come from?What does it actually mean to study international relations in China?In this episode, I speak with Yaqi Li, an MSc candidate in International Relations at RSIS in Singapore. Yaqi, who grew up in China’s Hubei province, is someone who studied political science and IR in China; he offers a first-hand view of what the classroom environment is like.On paper, much of it looks familiar. Students study realism, liberalism, international political economy. But the experience is also very different. There are limits to inquiry. Domestic politics is largely absent. And official ideology sits alongside political theory in ways that shape how students engage with the changing world around them.So this is a conversation about classrooms. But it’s also about power.How are ideas produced in China? How do they travel into the policy system? And what happens when a system tries to generate knowledge, but also constrain it?We explore the gap between theory and practice. The role of think tanks and state institutions. And the internal logic that shapes Chinese statecraft—its strengths, its blind spots, and its limits.Because if we want to understand what China does, we first need to understand how it thinks.As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, please feel free to reach out to me.Do check out Yaqi’s Substack and podcast: New China Literacy

We are living through a moment of tremendous transformation. The post-Cold War order is over, and what replaces it is not yet clear. What is clear, however, is that the two countries with the most power to shape that answer are the United States and China. How they manage their competition— in fact, whether they can manage it at all—is a defining question of our era.That question was tested last year, as the two sides skirmished over trade and technology. It will be tested again this year, as their leaders prepare to meet.A summit between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping is scheduled for April. This, however, is now being delayed by the war in West Asia. Nevertheless, after a year of tariff battles, technology frictions, and an uneasy truce struck in Busan, the two are set to soon meet again.Both sides want something from this encounter. But do they want the same things? And what does success even look like when the ideological distance between Washington and Beijing may be greater than either side publicly admits?To explore these questions, in this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak with Ryan Hass, Director of John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, and former Director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the National Security Council under President Barack Obama. He is also the author of Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence.We discuss the Trump administration’s real objectives on China. Who is driving US policy within the administration? And what Xi Jinping has taken away from a year of dealing with Trump. We also dig into the deeper structural questions: why Beijing treats American decline as an ideological conviction, not just wishful thinking, and why, on both sides of the Pacific, competition has moved beyond politics into something more enduring.Because this isn’t just about a summit, or a trade truce, or even the bilateral relationship. It’s about whether two powers can build anything durable in the space between rivalry and rupture.As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, please feel free to reach out to me.

Over the weekend, renewed conflict in the Middle East was a stark reminder of how fragile the international order has become, and what happens when major powers begin to bend the very rules they helped create. For countries caught in between, the space for strategic comfort is shrinking.Nowhere is this tension clearer than in Europe’s relationship with China. Beijing’s rise is no longer a projection; it is a structural reality. From advanced manufacturing and green technology to critical minerals and electric mobility, China is shaping the economic terrain on which Europe’s future competitiveness will be decided.For Germany in particular, the challenge is acute. Its trade imbalance with China has widened, its companies remain deeply embedded in the Chinese market, and yet Berlin is trying to “de-risk” without rupturing ties. So how does Germany see China today? And what, if anything, did Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent visit to Beijing reveal about the direction of that relationship?To unpack these questions, on this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak to Marina Rudyak, Assistant professor for Chinese Studies at Heidelberg University, and currently visiting scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. She’s also one of the founders of The Decoding China Project, a unique initiative to strengthen China literacy.We discuss Germany’s evolving China strategy, the tensions between business and security thinking, and what managing interdependence really looks like. Because this isn’t just about Germany and China. It’s about how major economies adapt to a world where competition with Beijing is structural, but disengagement is not an option.As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, please feel free to reach out to me.

We often hear from Beijing that the world today is undergoing “changes unseen in a century,” and that opportunities and risks coexist. But what does the external environment actually look like from inside the Chinese system? If you were a policymaker or analyst in Beijing, how would you read the balance between threat and opportunity?In addition, who are the people that influence the thinking about China’s foreign policy? Is it entirely top-down? Or is there room for policy engineers and entrepreneurs to make an impact?To unpack these questions, in this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak to Sabine Mokry, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, and author of Chinese Scholars and Think Tanks’ Constructions of China’s National Interest.The conversation focuses on how one can distinguish between signal and noise in terms of China’s external communication. We examine the institutional stakeholders within officialdom. What role does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs play today? How does it compare with the Party’s International Department? And how do different actors coordinate—or compete—in shaping China’s external posture?Beyond the state, what about scholars, think tanks, and media? Is there a useful way to classify China’s foreign policy research ecosystem? How do debates take place, and how do we assess the influence of someone in a system that is so opaque?And finally, we discuss how big ideas come to be—the Belt and Road Initiative and the various Global initiatives of the Xi era. Where do these concepts come from? Who helps package them? And what role does ideology actually play in Chinese foreign policy today?As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, please feel free to reach out to me.

In a world shaped by war in Europe, strategic rivalry with China, and growing uncertainty about the United States, the India–Europe relationship is quietly undergoing a major transformation. Once seen as slow-moving and largely transactional, ties between New Delhi and Brussels have accelerated dramatically over the past two years.On India’s Republic Day this year, the government hosted European leaders, led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, as special guests. The summit that followed the parade and pageantry delivered a major breakthrough: the signing of a long-negotiated free trade agreement, a deal von der Leyen described as the “mother of all deals.” Alongside it, India and the EU also inked a new Security and Defence Partnership, marking the beginning of a qualitatively new phase in their relationship.This sudden momentum is striking. Both India and the European Union are known for sprawling bureaucracies and painstaking negotiations. The FTA itself had been discussed, often haltingly, for over two decades. So what explains this newfound urgency? And what has driven this rediscovery between New Delhi and Brussels, especially after several tense years marked by European frustrations over India’s relationship with Russia?To unpack these questions, on this episode of The Great Power Show, I’m joined by Garima Mohan, Senior Fellow for India at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Garima lays out the three strategic shocks reshaping European thinking, explains why India’s importance has risen so sharply in Brussels, and shows how geopolitical churn is pushing both sides toward a new strategic dynamic.From trade and defence cooperation to technology and the search for strategic autonomy, this conversation explores what India and Europe now expect from each other, and what this partnership could mean in an increasingly fragmented global order.Garima’s essay referenced in the showIndian Radius newsletter by Vanshika Saraf, which offers a breakdown of the India-EU summitAs always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

The Horn of Africa has long been described as one of the world’s most unstable regions. But instability, as we know, is rarely accidental. It is often the outcome of history, geography, and politics colliding over time.From contested borders drawn at the end of colonial rule, to unresolved questions of statehood and sovereignty, the region has been shaped by incomplete state formation and recurring external intervention. Add to this competition over resources, ethnic fragmentation, and inter-state rivalries, and the Horn becomes not just a regional fault line, but a space of real geopolitical consequence.Today, those dynamics are intersecting with a changing global order. Governments in the Horn are navigating a world that may no longer be defined by clear rules or stable hierarchies; one marked instead by transactional diplomacy, great-power competition, and strategic fragmentation. At the same time, shifts in US economic policy and aid under Trump are forcing African states to reassess assumptions about development, dependence, and autonomy.To understand the geopolitics of the region, and how the Horn along with Africa at large is viewing the world, I reached out to Dr Hassan Khannenje, Director of the HORN International Institute for Strategic Studies in Nairobi. Dr. Khannenje argues that the Horn is increasingly emerging as a strategic theatre amid great power competition. His critique of US policy and the broader West is biting; and his perspective on Africa-China ties is one of a pragmatist. Fundamentally, Dr. Khannenje worries that in the emerging world disorder, a new scramble for Africa is likely to play out as global powers compete for maritime chokepoints and the minerals required for future technologies.As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

We are entering a dangerous phase in global politics, one where speed, force, and unilateral action are beginning to matter more than law, legitimacy, or restraint. Great powers are increasingly willing to test the boundaries of sovereignty.Just hours after we recorded this episode of The Great Power Show, the United States carried out a military operation in Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The operation sent a troubling signal of how power may be exercised in an emerging, more brutish international order. This is something that I intend to explore in future episodes.In this episode, however, we step back and examine the deeper strategic context shaping American policy in the Western Hemisphere. To do that, I reached out to Dr. Evan Ellis, Latin America Research Professor and the General Douglas MacArthur Research Chair at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, and a former member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean.We begin by looking at how the United States is re-prioritising the Western Hemisphere as a core strategic theatre. How are older ideas, such as the Monroe Doctrine, shaping contemporary American thinking? What does this have to do with strategic competition between the US and China? What are Chinese interests in Latin America and the Caribbean region? Are we entering a phase where great powers, including the US, are looking to secure their spheres of influence and perhaps will we see some sort of trade-offs between them in this context?You can subscribe to Dr. Ellis’ substack here.As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out.

We’re living through a moment of profound global churn.Trust in politics is eroding. Nationalism is surging. Great powers are retreating from the idea that the world can grow together. Instead, they are embracing zero-sum competition, technological supremacy, and national power as the primary source of legitimacy.In this episode of The Great Power Show, I’m joined by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, political theorist, public intellectual, and one of sharpest thinkers on democracy, liberalism, and the international order.We take a step back from the headlines to ask some bigger questions: What happens to the global system when national supremacy becomes the reigning ideology? Are liberal democracy and individual freedom facing a deeper crisis, not just politically, but philosophically? And as technology reshapes power, identity, and governance, are we moving toward a world where the individual is increasingly subordinated to the state and collective ambition?We also explore the limits of great power dominance, the shrinking space for middle powers, Russia’s role in the world, China’s vision of modernity, and why the real battle today may be over legitimacy, at home as much as abroad.This is a wide-ranging conversation about power, identity, technology, and the future of global order.As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Europe today finds itself at a geopolitical crossroads. From Brussels to Berlin, Paris to Warsaw, policymakers are grappling with a world order that is undergoing fundamental changes. At one level, there is a growing sense of clarity: Europe today sees a world shaped by intensifying great-power rivalry, fragile economic interdependence, and political currents that are tugging the continent in different directions. But beneath that clarity lies deep uncertainty. What role is there for Europe in this new world that is emerging?The return of Donald Trump to the White House in January only sharpened these questions. European leaders said they were better prepared for a second Trump presidency, and more attuned to the risks. Yet a year on, concerns about American reliability linger. The transatlantic relationship still feels incredibly fragile and dialogue with America feels coercive and extractive. Nothing exemplifies this than the divergences between the EU and the US over the war in Ukraine.Then there is China. The EU officially describes China as a partner for cooperation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival. It has developed several instruments to address concerns around economic imbalances, subsidies and human rights. But the relationship remains rocky. This was evident when the EU-China summit earlier this year ended with nothing substantive agreed.And finally, there’s India—an emerging partner, a strategic opportunity, but also a relationship shaped by persistent friction over trade, Russia, and values. The question is whether Europe and India can find enough convergence to build something truly durable.So how should we understand Europe in 2025? What worldview is taking shape, what anxieties lie beneath it, and where might Europe be headed?To unpack all this, in this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak with Gesine Weber, Senior Researcher on Global Security at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. Gesine believes that in order to deal with the challenges before it, Europe needs to re-imagine its grand strategy from a realist perspective. This not only entails arriving at a new balance in transatlantic ties but also first outlining a clear vision for the relationship with China rather than simply creating specific toolkits or instruments.As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out.Gesine’s Substack: 5 mindset shifts for better European strategy on ChinaThe enduring relevance of realism for grand strategy in Europe

Late in October, the Communist Party of China concluded the Fourth Plenary session of the 20th Central Committee. Plenums as critically important gatherings of the Party’s elite. This one outlined the vision for China’s overall development for the next five years.The nutshell version of the long document that was issued was that Xi Jinping’s leadership has taken China down the right path of development and amassing power. So, we should expect more of that—more continuity in policy. In that sense, the Chinese leadership appears extremely confident that history and momentum are on its side. That said, the Party also believes that China is in an era where risks and opportunities coexist.So when it comes to the balance, do the opportunities outweigh the risks? Or is it the other way around? If you look at developments within China, power has become more centralised and political discipline more exacting. Abroad, China faces a world less willing to accommodate its ambitions, from tense ties with the United States to friction with its neighbours and rising technological barriers.So how should we read China in 2025? What does the Fourth Plenum reveal about the direction of economic policy, inner-Party debates, the state of the PLA, and the issue of political stability?To unpack these questions, in this episode of the Great Power Show, I speak with Neil Thomas, Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. Neil’s one of the most astute and thoughtful watchers of Chinese politics. Our conversation begins with how the world looks from Xi Jinping’s vantage point, and what that tells us about China’s evolving political logic and global ambitions. Along the way, we explore China’s current trajectory. We end by contemplating a China without Xi at the helm, and what the next chapter of leadership might mean for Beijing and the world.As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe and rate the episode; and if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.