In the ever-growing gulf between the U.S. and Chinese governments, what can often be lost are the citizens of the two superpowers. More difficult to sum up in a news article than the platform of a politician, public opinion is a nevertheless immensely important barometer of the U.S.-China relationship.

From an American perspective, gaining an understanding of what people in China really think can be a difficult task; with a completely different system of governance, a complex ideological history, and a social media and information ecosystem largely separate from that of the U.S., public opinion in China cannot necessarily be grafted neatly onto American perceptions of right and left.

Join the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) for a conversation on understanding the Chinese ideological spectrum with leading scholars in the field of contemporary Chinese politics and political communication, the first in a series of collaborations with Asia Society Southern California.

Joining us for the first feature, “Charting the Ideological Spectrum and Public Opinion in China,” is Jennifer Pan, Assistant Professor of Communication and, by courtesy, of Political Science and of Sociology, at Stanford University, and Rory Truex, Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Scott Kennedy will moderate.

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SPEAKERS

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Jennifer Pan is an Associate Professor of Communication at Stanford University. Her research focuses on political communication and authoritarian politics. Pan uses experimental and computational methods with large-scale datasets on political activity in China and other authoritarian regimes to answer questions about how autocrats perpetuate their rule; how political censorship, propaganda, and information manipulation work in the digital age; and how preferences and behaviors are shaped as a result.

Her book, Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (Oxford, 2020) shows how China's pursuit of political order transformed the country’s main social assistance program, Dibao, for repressive purposes. Her work has appeared in peer reviewed publications such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and Science.

She graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Government.

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Rory Truex is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. His research focuses on Chinese politics and authoritarian systems. His work has been published in the American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics, and The China Quarterly, and featured in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. In 2021 he received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching honor at Princeton. He currently resides in Philadelphia.

MODERATOR

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Scott Kennedy is senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). A leading authority on Chinese economic policy, Kennedy has been traveling to China for over 30 years. His specific areas of expertise include industrial policy, technology innovation, business lobbying, U.S.-China commercial relations, and global governance. He is the editor of China’s Uneven High-Tech Drive: Implications for the United States (CSIS, February 2020) and the author of The State and the State of the Art on Philanthropy in China (Voluntas, August 2019), China’s Risky Drive into New-Energy Vehicles (CSIS, November 2018), The Fat Tech Dragon: Benchmarking China’s Innovation Drive (CSIS, August 2017), and The Business of Lobbying in China (Harvard University Press, 2005). He has edited three books, including Global Governance and China: The Dragon’s Learning Curve (Routledge, 2018). His articles have appeared in a wide array of policy, popular, and academic venues, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and China Quarterly. He is currently writing a report tentatively titled, Beyond Decoupling: Winning the Hi-Tech Competition Against China.

From 2000 to 2014, Kennedy was a professor at Indiana University (IU), where he established the Research Center for Chinese Politics & Business and was the founding academic director of IU’s China Office. Kennedy received his Ph.D. in political science from George Washington University, his M.A. in China Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and his B.A. from the University of Virginia.

IN PARTNERNSHIP WITH:

Asia Society Southern California