How the CCP Dupes the West—and We Keep Falling for It | Chenggang Xu

American Thought Leaders

The Epoch Times

Government, News, Politics

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Political economist Chenggang Xu grew up amid the upheaval of China’s Cultural Revolution and in the 1970s was beaten, imprisoned, and subjected to years of forced labor by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Today, he is a senior research scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the new book, “Institutional Genes: Origins of China’s Institutions and Totalitarianism.”

For decades, Beijing has repeatedly deceived the world about its true intentions, Xu says. So why do we keep falling for it?

In this episode, we dive into the origins of the Chinese Communist Party and why Xu believes its model of totalitarianism is distinct from any other regime today.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	A hundred percent of the land in China is state-owned.
0:05.1	But the party controls the state.
0:07.3	So there's no separation between the party and the state.
0:10.3	In this episode, I sit down with professor and political economist Chenggeng Shu.
0:15.1	He grew up amid the upheaval of China's cultural revolution, and in the 1970s was beaten,
0:20.5	imprisoned, and subjected to years
0:22.5	of forced labor by the Chinese Communist Party.
0:24.9	When you are not challenging the Communist Party, then sure, you can say whatever you
0:30.9	want to say.
0:31.9	The author of Institutional Genes, Professor Shu explains the origins of CCP totalitarianism, which he argues
0:39.1	is unique and distinct from any other regime today.
0:42.0	Actually, the Cold War has not ended.
0:45.6	So when people thought that was the end of history, that was a misunderstanding because
0:51.7	the Chinese Communists are still there. And now it's a continuation,
0:56.4	just in a different format. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yan Ye Kelleck.
1:03.4	Professor Chenggeng Shu, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
1:07.9	Thank you for having me. Something that is very, very difficult to understand, but I think of critical importance
1:16.6	in the relationship of communist China and the free world is the nature of the Chinese Communist
1:24.2	Party and how it's fundamentally different from what we think of as conventional
1:29.8	institutions. I've struggled over decades trying to explain this to people, and you've
1:36.8	actually come up with a way of doing it. So please explain to me what you've discovered here.
1:41.3	Right. So here, actually, if we want to explain that in a very simple way, then the simplest
	...

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