The black box of Chinese leadership politics has become even blacker in recent years. How do we, as outside observers, know when we can trust the information that we do get about the leadership? What types of sources and information tend to end up being the basis for our understanding of leadership processes? Using examples about the current leadership, this talk will make the case that we need to continually question how we know what we know and seek to bring in other sources and viewpoints to help us understand what’s happening in Zhongnanhai.
We invite Jessica Batke, Visiting Fellow at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) to discuss.
*https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ycw-bxl-what-do-we-really-know-about-the-chinese-leadership-gossip-guanxi-and-guesswork-tickets-26169446519*
In Partnership With Eno Atelier
Jessica Batke
Jessica Batke is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin. She has served as a Foreign Affairs Research Analyst at the State Department in Washington, DC, for the past seven years. There she focuses on Chinese society, including culture, religious, ethnic, media, and human rights issues. She also works on elite Chinese leadership politics. She received her Master’s in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and a B.A. in Linguistics from Pitzer College.
