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
Historian Rana Mitter on ideology in China's "New Era" — live from Salzburg, Austria