Reconciling Ideological Contradictions in Contemporary China

Historian Rana Mitter joins Sinica this week in a show taped live in Salzburg, Austria at the Salzburg Global Seminar, in which he discusses efforts by Party ideologists to create a Confucian-Marxist synthesis that can serve as an enduring foundation for a modern Chinese worldview in the self-proclaimed “new era.”

01:28 – Is China a revisionist power?

02:16 – Right-sizing China's global ambitions

09:27 — How China utilizes historical narratives to support political ends

10:43 – Marxism and China's Historical Understanding

17:07 – China's "New Era" and Party history

28:38 – The Confucian-Marxist Synthesis 

56:58 – China's ability to reinvent itself

1:02:15 – What’s the next big question?

A complete transcript is available at the Sinica Substack.

Recommendations: 

Rana: Eliza Clark, Boy Parts

Kaiser: Anthony Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade 

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