Minxin Pei
Visiting Senior FellowDr. Minxin Pei joined GMF as a visiting senior fellow for Indo-Pacific in 2012. As part of the Indo-Pacific team, Pei advances GMF’s work on the implications of China’s rise for the West and supports the Stockholm China Forum.
In addition to his work with GMF, Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker Professor of Government and director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 1994) and China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard University Press, 2006). His research has focused on democratization, China’s political development, the Chinese Communist Party, U.S.–China relations, and Chinese foreign policy. Pei is a columnist for L’Espresso and the Indian Express, and a regular contributor to The Diplomat. He has written for the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek International, and the International Herald Tribune. He received his PhD in political science from Harvard University.
Featured Work
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July 15, 2021
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June 30, 2021
Human beings approaching 100 normally think about death, but political parties celebrating their centennial, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will...
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May 18, 2021
The foundations of strategic stability in East Asia are crumbling. As the U.S....
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April 30, 2021
The presidency of Joe Biden may be just over 100 days old, but at this point, hopes for a U.S.-China thaw are fast vanishing in Washington and Beijing...
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April 7, 2021
China’s antagonistic response to concerns over the use of forced labor in Xinjiang suggests that its leaders believe that the Chinese market is simply...
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April 6, 2021
Even after its national security law effectively stifled protest in Hong Kong, China's rulers show no sign of letting up the pressure on the former...
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March 10, 2021
China's Two Sessions -- the annual meeting of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference -- hardly seem...
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February 17, 2021
Anniversaries are occasions for reflection....
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January 27, 2021
The China strategy of President Joe Biden rests on two pillars. One is to rally America's traditional allies and forge a broad alliance to counter...
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December 1, 2020
Those unnerved by the rapid escalation of tensions between the U.S....
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November 3, 2020
When 18 Chinese warplanes breached Taiwan's air defense identification zone last month, it was a further sign of rising tensions across the Taiwan...
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October 8, 2020
Xi Jinping may be in denial, but it has become increasingly clear that his risky bets have plunged the country into a deepening geopolitical hole....
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September 18, 2020
Shinzo Abe’s unexpected resignation as Japanese prime minister last month for health reasons has raised...
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August 24, 2020
The U.S. government's strategy of cutting cultural, educational, and journalistic ties with China is unwise and counterproductive. Such an approach...
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August 12, 2020
Xi should release all Uighur Muslims, and pay compensation of up to $14,000 each...
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July 17, 2020
Some of the Chinese government’s recent policies seem to make little practical sense, with its decision to impose a national-security law on Hong Kong...
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July 17, 2020
Britain’s decision to ban Huawei from its 5G networks has dealt a painful blow to China....
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July 15, 2020
Beijing has threatened Australia, Japan and others with tariffs and tourism cuts...
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July 14, 2020
For the first time since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the Communist Party of China faces a genuine existential threat, mainly because its...
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June 11, 2020
At a time when China’s reputation is suffering and its relationship with the United States is in freefall, the country’s diplomats should be focused...
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May 19, 2020
Over the past few years, the United States’ approach to China has taken a hard-line turn, with the balance between cooperation and competition in the...
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May 14, 2020
The author of China’s Crony Capitalism discusses the Chinese response to COVID-19, why the Communist Party reads Alexis de Tocqueville, and why the...
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March 27, 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic escalates, China has shifted its propaganda machine into high gear, in an effort to change the narrative about the virus's...
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January 29, 2020
An outbreak of a new coronavirus that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan has already infected over 6,000 people – mostly in China, but also in several...
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January 24, 2020
When Chinese leaders celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Rat on January 25, they will most likely add a toast to the interim trade deal China...
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January 1, 2020
Confrontation between China and the U.S., the world's two largest economies, escalated dramatically in 2019, covering not just trade but also...
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December 9, 2019
Although the rapid escalation of violence in Hong Kong seems terrifying enough, thin...
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October 24, 2019
The Chinese saying “lifting a rock only to drop it on one’s feet”, or its English equivalent, “to shoot oneself in the foot”, perfectly describ...
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September 24, 2019
On 1 October, to mark the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, President Xi Jinping will deliver a speech that unreservedly celebrates...
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September 18, 2019
For China's rulers, 2019 is shaping up to be a terrible year. On the economic front, growth has fallen to its slowest pace since 1992....
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September 1, 2019
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been attempting to transform the Chinese Communist Party into an ideologically committed, organizationally disciplined,...
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August 6, 2019
In a democracy, a government cannot pursue a long-term struggle with a powerful geopolitical adversary without sustained political support from an...
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May 31, 2019
China’s progress toward an open society ended when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) slaughtered at least hundreds, if not thousands, of peaceful...
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May 15, 2019
Late last month at a security forum in Washington, Kiron Skinner, the director of policy planning for the U.S....
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May 14, 2019
Late last month at a security forum in Washington, DC, Kiron Skinner, Director of Policy Planning for the US Department of State, ...
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April 16, 2019
Lou Jiwei may not be a household name in the West, but the former Chinese finance minister is well known and highly respected among financiers and...
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March 14, 2019
It is convenient to call the escalating geopolitical contest between the United States and China a “new cold war.” But that description should not be...
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February 20, 2019
As Chinese and American trade negotiators meet in Washington to try to forge an acc...
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February 15, 2019
The news for China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been unrelentingly bad....
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February 11, 2019
A core doctrine of American governments since World War II has been that trade liberalization would lead to a virtuous cycle of rising wealth and ever...
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February 8, 2019
Shortly after China’s strongman president, Xi Jinping, came to power in late 2012, the Communist Party of China circulated its now-infamous “...
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January 15, 2019
China's tough stance toward Taiwan has so far proved counter-productive, bringing no concessions from the government in Taipei and exacerbating...
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December 17, 2018
What is most notable about China’s efforts to spread its influence abroad is not their success, but the ease with which they are exposed....
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October 24, 2018
Despite the low probability of a direct military clash between the US and China, a Sino-American cold war would undoubtedly produce collateral damage...
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September 17, 2018
If China responds to Donald Trump's latest trade tariffs by withholding intermediate goods from US producers, as some Chinese are suggesting, the...
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September 5, 2018
In contrast to the Soviet Union, China's leaders recognize that strong economic performance is essential to political legitimacy....
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August 28, 2018
By any measure, China’s inequality in wealth and income has risen at an alarming pace, reaching new heights in recent years....
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August 24, 2018
The First Opium War (1839-1842) marks the official beginning of China’s so-called century of humiliation, a period in which the Celestial Empire lost...
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August 20, 2018
Five months ago, when the Communist Party of China freed President Xi Jinping from term limits, the conventional wisdom was that his dominance within...
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June 6, 2018
The fact that the current trade spat is about more than economics will make it much harder to manage....
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April 10, 2018
In March, China’s National People’s Congress rubber-stamped the elimination of presidential term limits, clearing the way for President Xi Jinping to...
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February 14, 2018
The realists have won, the liberals have lost. This would most likely be history's verdict on the Western debate over China's rise and its emerging...
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December 1, 2017
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping emerged from the Chinese Communist Party's 19th congress as the country's most powerful leader in the post-Mao era,...
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November 3, 2017
American President Donald Trump's first summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in April this year in Florida produced a lot of warm and...
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August 7, 2017
Now that U.S. President Donald Trump's strategy of pressuring China to rein in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs has failed, Washington's...
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July 17, 2017
It was good while it lasted, although it did not last very long....
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June 28, 2017
When China commemorates the 20th anniversary of the return of the former British colony to Chinese rule on July 1, Beijing will undoubtedly declare...
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April 10, 2017
Chinese and American leaders have held many summits since U.S. President Richard Nixon landed in Beijing in February 1972. Most of these summits...
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March 13, 2017
Amidst rising tensions in Northeast Asia, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s upcoming visit to the region this week offers a glimmer of hope that...
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February 27, 2017
Even by the standards of a rogue nation, North Korea's recent behavior has been outrageous. First, it tested a solid-fuel medium-range missile to...
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February 9, 2017
CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – The Cold War ended in December 1991, when the Soviet Union disintegrated....
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September 28, 2016
Photo by: Voice of America...
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August 29, 2016
Even the world’s most stable democracies of late have been infected by strongmania...
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August 2, 2016
Official Chinese media are having a field day touting the dysfunction of Western democracies....
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July 13, 2016
Few should be surprised by the unanimous ruling this week against China by a tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), a Hague-based...
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June 9, 2016
The Western media has largely missed arguably the most important recent economic development in China: the dramatic fall of private investment....
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April 25, 2016
Apple’s unpleasant experience in China offers a warning to American tech giants....
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April 5, 2016
As far as scandals go, the recent revelation that 2 million doses of expired or spoiled vaccines with a value of 570 million yuan ($88 million) had...
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February 9, 2016
China is once again gripped by fear in a way it has not been since the era of Mao Zedong....
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