Understanding Xi: Is China’s President a Threat to the World? (Part One)

Welcome to Intelligence Squared where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Serenti and I'm joined today by head of programming Connor Boyle. So Connor, what can we expect from today's episode? Well Mia, today is the second installment of our Age of the Strongman series, which is a series both you and I have been working on, exploring the leader's shape shaping our world in 2025.

Listeners may have heard the first one with Understanding Putin and this one is about understanding Xi, obviously the leader of China. And we were really blessed to have Rana Mitter, who many listeners will have heard on the podcast before, joining us in London to discuss the ways in which Xi is shaping not only China but the rest of the world and will do in the years ahead. As last time, this discussion was hosted by the incredible Gideon Rackman, who's the chief foreign affairs commentator for the FT. So why did we want to make sure that the second installment of the series was so focused on Xi Jimping? Well, I think a lot of media attention, understandably, has been around Putin and Trump in recent months, but no one can forget Xi, probably the most powerful, if not one of the most powerful leaders in the world.

And his rise as a strongman leader, our host Gideon Rackman, really felt very strongly about that this was someone we needed to cover and something we needed to uh people need a greater understanding of. So yeah, I know you've been working with Gideon a lot as well and your key part in getting Rana and Gideon together for today's episode. Yeah, absolutely. And Gideon, as you said, is again hosting this event and he's hosting every event in this series because it's in part based on his own book, The Age of the Strongman, which is where, you know, many years ago he kind of predicted this trend in leadership that we're now seeing kind of unfurl in full across the globe, this kind of defining strongman characteristics, very aggressive in global policy.

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