This is a recording from September 4th of a conversation I had with Professor Joseph Torigian about his excellent book on Xi Jinping’s father - The Party's Interests Come First - The Life of Xi Zhongxun, the importance of history to the Party, and to Xi Jinping, and how we might view the recent commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the “Victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War”.
One interesting quote 44:30 : "the ultimate reason the soviet union collapsed is a case of peaceful evolution, that you win over key individuals to Western values and then wait for them to go into the leadership and then they tear it down on their own". Did Putin and Xi just reverse this exact strategy to the west, specifically the US with authoritarian and dictatorial world view? Are we living through the Reverse Gorbachev?
One interesting quote 44:30 : "the ultimate reason the soviet union collapsed is a case of peaceful evolution, that you win over key individuals to Western values and then wait for them to go into the leadership and then they tear it down on their own". Did Putin and Xi just reverse this exact strategy to the west, specifically the US with authoritarian and dictatorial world view? Are we living through the Reverse Gorbachev?
I like how you put it: "reverse Gorbachev"