Why China’s past matters: Understanding Xi Jinping and the CCP’s tight grip on history

MERICS is delighted to invite you to a discussion on “Why China’s past matters: Understanding Xi Jinping and the CCP’s tight grip on history” on Monday, November 10, from 18:00 to 20:00 (CET) at MERICS.

Joseph Torigian, author of “The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping” and Ian Johnson, author of “Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future” will take part in a discussion alongside MERICS experts Helena Legarda and Bernhard Bartsch.

Writing history and drawing lessons from it is highly political in many countries, but for the Chinese Communist Party it is crucial for legitimizing its rule and ambitions. Indeed, the control of history is one of Xi Jinping’s signature policies.

Joseph Torigian, Associate Professor at the School of International Service at American University, is a leading scholar on China’s political elites and Xi Jinping’s personal history in particular. In June this year, he published the first biography written in English of Xi’s father, the revolutionary Xi Zhongxun. From the legacy of the elder Xi, much can be learned about both Xi Jinping and the nature of the party he leads. Torigian’s research gives us a glimpse into the extraordinary organizational, ideological, and coercive power of the CCP as well as the family background that has shaped China’s most powerful man today.

Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and researcher. He is also the founder and director of the China Unofficial Archives, a repository for books, samizdat magazines, and underground films banned in China. His latest book shows how - despite the best efforts of Xi Jinping’s surveillance state - a nationwide movement has coalesced to challenge the CCP’s control of history.

Speakers:

Joseph Torigian is Associate Professor at the School of International Service at American University and a Research Fellow at the Hoover History Lab at Stanford University.

Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and researcher based in Berlin. He has spent more than 20 years working and reporting in China.

Helena Legarda heads the MERICS research team on Foreign Relations.

Moderator:

Bernhard Bartsch, Director External Relations at MERICS.