Speaker: Dr. Joseph Torigian (American University)
Date: 20 May 2025
Speaker Session Summary
SMA hosted a speaker session with Dr. Joseph Torigian (American University) as part of its SMA INDOPACOM Speaker Series.
Xi Jinping is frequently described as a fundamentally new type of leader in Chinese politics—one who has dismantled the tradition of collective leadership and revived elements of Maoist ideological discourse. While these characterizations contain some validity, they do not fully capture the nuances of Chinese elite politics or the current role of ideology within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP has long functioned as a system that is notably leader-centric, and assertions that Xi is abandoning Deng Xiaoping’s institutional leadership framework do not align with recent historiographical reassessments of Deng’s governance. Although Xi appears committed to restoring ideological conviction among party members as essential to the CCP’s survival, his formative experiences during the Mao era likely instilled a degree of skepticism toward radical politics. Xi’s ideological approach appears to chart a middle path—seeking to preserve the economic dynamism of the Reform and Opening period while selectively invoking elements of earlier ideological frameworks to address the socio-political challenges stemming from those reforms. Furthermore, given the CCP’s top-down power structure, it remains improbable that internal elite coalitions will compel a strategic realignment.
To read Dr. Torigian’s book on President Xi Jinping before and after his rise to power, please view The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping.
Speaker Session Recording
Also forthcoming!
Briefing Materials
Biography: Dr. Joseph Torigian is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, and a Center Associate of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. Previously, he was a Visiting Fellow at the China in the World Program at Australian National University, a Stanton Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton-Harvard’s China and the World Program, a Postdoctoral (and Predoctoral) Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), a Predoctoral Fellow at George Washington University’s Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, an IREX scholar affiliated with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and a Fulbright Scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai. His first book, “Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao” was released with Yale University Press, and “The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping” (flyer with discount code attached) was published by Stanford University Press in 2025.
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