For many years, the West had great hopes on China. That market economy would eventually lead to democracy or at least a liberalization. But even as these hopes did not materialize, a West in nearly constant crisis was grateful for a Chinese government that other than the Russian one did not exploit its weaknesses, but rather stabilized the system. In the recent past however disillusionment set it. The US and Europe started to realize that not only was Beijing not willing to play by the rules once set by the West – but that it pursues ambitions that threaten the very existence of the system.

In this Episode we talk to British analyst Andrew Small about this process of waking up, about how hopes for a certain kind of globalization were shattered. About Beijing s efforts for alliance building – and Emmanuel Macron.

Andrew Small is a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund s Indo-Pacific Program which he established in 2006. He recently published The Rupture: China and the Global Race for the Future/No Limits: the Inside Story of China’s War with the West, which was named one of the 2022 Financial Times’ Books of the Year.

Sound Editor for this episode is Aaditya Surve and Parichay Talreja.