China is a rising geopolitical power.  The decisions made by the Chinese government will affect the economy, the environment, the security environment, global public health, and much else.

What do Americans really know about the Chinese government and Chinese political system?  Many of us think of China’s system through the lens of Cold War caricatures about life under authoritarian states.  We imagine a society in which the government controls what people know and what they say.  We hear about government filters and censorship, and how democracy activists are punished for their speech.  But is it all so simple?

In this episode of The Annex Live, we will sit down to learn the details of China’s political and government system with two experts.  Ya-Wen Lei (Harvard University) is is the author of The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China (Princeton University Press), a book that examines the development of the Chinese public sphere through during the Internet revolution.  Emily Chua (National University of Singapore) is the author of the upcoming The Currency of Truth: Newsmaking and the Late-Socialist Imaginaries of China’s Digital Era (University of Michigan Press), a book about the detailed inner workings of the Chinese media and how these relationships shape journalism and governance in that country.

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This panel will be hosted by Joseph Cohen (CUNY Queens College)

Interesting Links:

• American Sociological Association Section on Asia and Asian America