The worldview of Wang Huning, the Party's leading theoretician
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2021
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Sinica, we present a deep-dive into the worldview of China’s leading Party theorist, Wáng Hùníng 王沪宁. Wang — the only member of the Politburo Standing Committee who has not run a province or provincial-level municipality — is believed to have been the thinker behind ideas as central (and as ideologically distinct) as Jiāng Zémín’s 江泽民 signature “Three Represents,” which brought capitalists into the Chinese Communist Party; Hú Jǐntāo’s 胡锦涛 “Scientific Outlook on Development” that focused on social harmony; and Xí Jìnpíng’s “Chinese Dream” that aimed at the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” While much of Wang’s life since he entered government has been hidden from view, his earlier writings contain many ideas that appear to have shaped Party policy across the tenure of three Party general secretaries over a period of nearly three decades, and offer clues about what still might be in store. Kaiser is joined by Joseph Fewsmith III, an eminent professor of political science at Boston University; the intellectual historian Timothy Cheek, professor of history at the University of British Columbia, whose work has focused on establishment intellectuals in the PRC; and Matthew Johnson, principal and founder of the China-focused consultancy AltaSilva LLC, who has studied and written about Wang extensively.
4:31 – An outline of Wang Huning's career
8:36 – Wang Huning's personality and temperament
12:28 – Wang speaks
16:45 – Wang as an example of post-charismatic leadership loyalty
24:02 – Wang's America Against America
31:04 – Wang Huning's concepts of cultural security and cultural sovereignty
46:36 – Wang and Document Number Nine
55:39 – Chinese conceptions of democracy
A transcript of this podcast is available on SupChina.com.
Recommendations:
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The Logic of Images in International Relations by Robert Jervis.
Joe: Now that more Americans recognize that China is not becoming "more like us," they need a deeper understanding of China, and not one just rooted in hostility and militarism.
Tim: In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova.
Kaiser: River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the cynical podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with SubChina. |
| 0:14.6 | Subscribe to SubChina's daily access newsletter to keep on top of all the latest news from China from hundreds of different news sources or check out all the original writing on our site at sup china.com including |
| 0:25.9 | reported stories, editorials, and regular columns, as well as a growing library of videos and |
| 0:31.1 | of course podcasts. We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations to its ingenious |
| 0:36.2 | entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim people in China's fraught foreign relations to its ingenious entrepreneurs, from the ongoing |
| 0:38.3 | repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim people in China's Xinjiang region to China's ambitious |
| 0:43.1 | efforts to eliminate poverty. It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation |
| 0:48.8 | that is reshaping the world. We cover China with neither fear nor favor. I'm Kaiser Guo, coming to you from my home in |
| 0:55.2 | Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Of the seven men on the party's Politburo Standing Committee, |
| 1:01.3 | only one has never actually run either a province or a provincial level municipality as |
| 1:06.9 | party secretary. In fact, that one man has not even served as mayor of any city, though he was a hell |
| 1:13.5 | of a debate coach at Fudan University. |
| 1:15.8 | The man in question is, of course, Wang Houning, who, as the party's leading political |
| 1:20.4 | theorist, has perhaps not surprisingly been the object of some fascination of late in China |
| 1:25.5 | watching circles. |
| 1:26.8 | After all, not only has ideology very much |
| 1:29.3 | returned to the foreground in China with the current focus on common prosperity in the run-up |
| 1:34.3 | to the 20th Party Congress, a year from now, but it's also gained prominence in the discourse |
| 1:38.7 | on Sino-U.S. relations. This isn't just happening on the Chinese side either. |
| 1:43.9 | President Joe Biden has spoken |
| 1:45.1 | on several occasions of this great global contest, ultimately an ideological one, between democracy |
| 1:51.2 | and authoritarianism, with little doubt as to which nations are the chosen champions from either |
... |
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