Date: October 13, 2025
Time: 2pm-5pm PT
Location: USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (ASC), 207
The conventional wisdom in policy and many academic circles surrounding Chinese foreign policy is that China is an inexorably rising top-down, monolithic, authoritarian juggernaut. The argument in this presentation is that such an assumption is at best incomplete and at worst inaccurate and distortionary. By contrast, this presentation looks at how Chinese rough-and-tumble domestic politics have become internationalized, deeply complicating foreign policy decisions crafted in the halls of power in Beijing and playing out in aid- and investment-recipient countries. This is not simply a question of domestic politics constraining international politics but rather of domestic politics competing with, and in some cases supplanting, China’s nationally defined foreign policy goals. Because China’s domestic politics are overwhelmingly fragmented, decentralized, and subnational in character, such a framing is in sharp contrast with and in direct opposition to our most important key assumptions of Chinese governance, domestic and international. This presentation takes as its case studies four Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries – Nicaragua, Myanmar, Ghana, and Cambodia – to illustrate this larger trend. This event is co-sponsored by Dornsife East Asian Studies and the USC U.S.-China Institute.
This program is open to all eligible individuals. USC Annenberg operates all of its programs and activities consistent with the University’s Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.