OxTalks Change Freeze Starts 2 March
Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. The two-week OxTalks freeze period starts on Monday 2nd March. During this time, there will be no facility to publish or edit events. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period. Once Oxford Events launches, you will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
How Economic Reform Revived Totalitarian Rule in China
When China embarked on modernization in 1979, many hoped that the country’s turn toward capitalism would put its totalitarian past to rest and moved it toward a more democratic future. Instead, China has reverted to a neo-totalitarian regime after more than four decades of economic reform and globalization. The fundamental cause is Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of saving one-party rule with capitalism. He steadfastly kept intact the institutional foundations of totalitarianism even as he unleashed private entrepreneurship and courted foreign investment. Only a fragile balance of power among duelling factions prevented the rise of a totalitarian leader after Deng’s death in 1997. But this temporary equilibrium collapsed when Xi Jinping rose to power in late 2012 – and revived many totalitarian practices that are likely to set China back decades politically, economically, and geopolitically.
Minxin Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker ‘72 Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. In 2019 he was the inaugural Library of Congress Chair on US-China Relations. Prior to joining Claremont McKenna College in 2009, he was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and served as its director of the China Program from 2003 to 2008. He was an opinion columnist for Bloomberg (2023-2024) and the author of From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (1994); China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (2006); China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay (2016); The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China (2024); and The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism (2025). Minxin received his PhD in government at Harvard and taught at Princeton University (1992-1998).
Date:
11 March 2026, 17:00
Venue:
Dickson Poon Building, Canterbury Road OX2 6LU
Venue Details:
Kin-ku Cheng Lecture Theatre (lower ground floor)
Speaker:
Professor Minxin Pei (Claremont McKenna College)
Organising department:
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Organiser:
Professor Todd Hall (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
information@chinese.ox.ac.uk
Hosts:
Professor Patricia Thornton (University of Oxford),
Professor Todd Hall (University of Oxford)
Part of:
China Centre talks
Booking required?:
Not required
Cost:
Free
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Clare Orchard
