Ian Johnson: An Expelled Journalist Returns to China | Foreign Affairs Interview

Foreign Affairs invites you to listen to its podcast, the Foreign Affairs Interview. This episode with Ian Johnson was originally published on October 5, 2023. In March 2020, as COVID-19 spread across the globe, the Chinese government expelled a handful of U.S. journalists from China. The move came weeks after the Trump administration curtailed the number of Chinese citizens who could work in the United States for state-run Chinese news organizations. Among the journalists forced to leave China was Ian Johnson, who had been living there for 20 years. This spring, Johnson finally returned to China. While he was there, he spoke to a cross section of Chinese people—not only scholars and officials but also small business owners, bus drivers, students, and nuns. Some were people he’d known for years. What he found was grim—a country in a state of stagnation and turning inward. Its leader, Xi Jinping, seemed so intent on control and so obsessed with security that no price was too high. Yet, under the surface, Johnson found there may be more dissent than most observers realize. Sources: “Xi’s Age of Stagnation” by Ian Johnson https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-jinping-age-stagnation “Xi Versus the Street” by Ian Johnson https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-versus-street Sparks: China's Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future by Ian Johnson https://www.amazon.com/Sparks-Chinas-Underground-Historians-Battle/dp/0197575501 Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise by Susan L. Shirk https://www.amazon.com/Overreach-China-Derailed-Peaceful-Rise/dp/0190068515