Empire of Illusion: Frank Dikötter on Why China Isn’t a Superpower

Uncommon Knowledge

Hoover Institution

Politics, History, News:politics, Science, News

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

Frank Dikötter is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who has recently returned to the United States after living in Hong Kong since 2006. In this provocative conversation, Dikötter challenges the prevailing narrative about China’s rise. Drawing from his latest book, China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower, Dikötter argues that the Chinese Communist Party has masterfully projected the image of a powerful, modern, and economically dominant nation—but says that image is largely a façade. Dikötter contends that far from being a true superpower, China remains fundamentally fragile: an empire held together by repression, propaganda, and paranoia. Despite gleaming cities and impressive-seeming economic statistics often cited by the West, he asserts that much of China’s so-called growth has been built on the backs of an impoverished population, often without its consent or benefit. He further explains how inflated numbers, hollow institutions, and internal contradictions undermine China’s long-term strength. In his view, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hasn’t lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty—it has merely stepped aside as ordinary people began reclaiming their autonomy after decades of devastation under Mao. Dikötter delves into how the CCP’s fear—of its own citizens, of capitalism, of peaceful evolution—has driven decisions for decades. Dikötter also draws parallels with the Soviet Union and suggests that, like the USSR’s, China’s power is brittle beneath the surface. Xi Jinping, he argues, is not a break from tradition but a continuation of the Party’s long-standing obsession with control. This conversation calls into question not only China’s global ambitions but also how the West has consistently misread the CCP’s intentions and capabilities. Ultimately, Dikötter leaves us with a stark question: Are we overestimating China’s strength—and underestimating its fear? Recorded on March 27, 2025.

Transcript

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0:00.0	China, a nation of 1.4 billion people that in the lifetime of anyone over the age of 35 has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and built a navy bigger than ours.
0:13.0	How did China do it and how frightened should we be?
0:18.0	Frank de Cotter on Uncommon Knowledge now. Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge.
0:32.6	A native of the Netherlands, Frank de Cotter holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Geneva and his doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
0:45.3	For 18 years, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, Dr. Dick Carter is now also a fellow at the Hoover Institution here at Stanford.
0:53.3	Dr. Dick Carterotter's many works
0:55.8	on China include his classic trilogy, known as the People's Trilogy, Mao's Great Famine,
1:01.0	the Tragedy of Liberation, and the Cultural Revolution. Dr. Dick Cotter's most recent book,
1:07.0	China After Mao, The Rise of a Superpower. We'll come to this, but Dr. Dick Carter argues that China as the supposed economic superpower
1:15.8	isn't all that it appears. Frank, welcome.
1:18.9	Thank you for having me. Frank, let me set up my first question as follows by giving you a quotation.
1:27.3	This is the late Hoover
1:28.3	fellow, Henry Rowan, writing in 2007, quote, should China's economy and the educational
1:35.5	attainments of its population continue to grow as they have in recent years, the more than
1:40.9	one-six of the world's people who live in China will, by 2025, that is this year, will by 2025 be citizens of a country correctly classified as belonging to the free nations of the earth."
1:54.0	That hasn't happened. On the other hand, South Korea, economic growth, pressure for political freedoms, democracy.
2:05.6	Taiwan, economic growth, pressure for political freedoms, it's a democracy.
2:12.6	Why was Henry Rowan, who was no fool, I don't know that you knew him, but I did? Henry Rowan was a highly intelligent man.
2:19.3	How did he get it wrong?
2:21.3	If my memory is correct, Henry Rowan, I read the stuff in the archives here at the Hoover,
2:28.3	predicted that China would be a democracy by the year 2015.
2:32.3	This is the later, I'm going a little soft on him actually, because he revised that,
	...

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