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The Origins of Modern China; Is Trump “Lost”? America, Home of the . . . Squatters?

Hoover Institution

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Frank Dikötter dissect the origins of Communist rule in China and why its founding myth still shapes Xi Jinping’s strategy today. Plus, the GoodFellows debate on how Donald Trump has “lost the country,” and Billie Eilish’s belief that “no one is illegal on stolen land.”

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00:03:15 - What Chinese Children Learn (and What They Don't)
00:07:45 - Misconceptions of the Chinese Communist Revolution
00:11:00 - Why Xi Jinping is Purging Like It’s 1942
00:13:20 - The Rise of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party
00:18:45 - Was the Chinese Revolution Actually a Soviet Operation?
00:23:00 - Why Land Reform Was Really a Path to Bonded Servitude
00:33:15 - Evaluating China’s Actual Military Capabilities and the Threat to Taiwan
00:40:00 - Western Misunderstandings of Chinese Communist Ideology
00:47:30 - Domestic Politics: Donald Trump’s Approval Ratings + AI "CapEx" Boom Peaking
00:50:00 - Billie Eilish’s Remark: Who Truly Owns "Stolen Land"?

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The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.

© 2026 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.

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20 Comments

@ragne5749 7 months ago

Frank Dikotter is such a great addition, more discussions with him please.

@fs5775 7 months ago

"The people in China... you don't have to explain it to them how brutal the regime is, it's westerners like us who make a fatal mistake assuming they are not real communists"

@dasglasperlenspiel10 7 months ago

I am enjoying this listening to Professor Dikoetter very much! I am going to read some of his books! Excellent!!!

@rghurst 7 months ago

"A Republic, if we can keep it!"

@PC-ee7tz 7 months ago

Fantastic discussion! Letting PR China into WTO hoping that when it develops economically and when there is a middle class the country will turn to democracy and stop being a risk to the established world order has been proved such a lunacy and geopolitical blunder. The professor is absolutely right that the CCP has never changed from its hideout years in Yan An in 1940s to Xi Jinping’s “modern” China now. The CCP is among the most brutal regimes of the whole human history. At the very beginning of the trade war with the US, then CCP’s vice Chairman Wang Qishan said publicly that “We are not afraid of Americans in a war because Chinese can survive for 3 years by eating weeds”. He referred to the great famine during 1958 and 1962, when ten of millions of Chinese starved to death under Mao’s brutal control. He clearly implied that depending on the situation the CCP can at any time reapply those “governing” measurements.

@beefreeman9411 7 months ago

“Red Dawn over China” is a great book. Thanks Frank.

@deanfunk8448 7 months ago

Another great one. Big thanks to Professor Dikotter and thanks again to the whole crew who make this wonderful exchange possible.

@Deannamarieley 7 months ago

Frank Dikotter is great to listen to. Very smart and well spoken. A treat. Thanks to you all.

@willliamking8212 7 months ago

A forgotten part of the Cambodia tragedy is that Cambodia was well on the way to creating a modern constitutional monarchy in the 1960s; but then the USA secretly decided to bomb it back to the stone age because USA mistakenly believed Cambodia was aiding the Viet Kong

@kaikhiunliew8713 7 months ago

An absolutely gripping interpretation by Frank Dikotter

@watsanman118 7 months ago

Ferguson seams to be starry & dreamy eyed when looking at Trump,
to a degree that seems to make Peter Schiff the better historian?

@cmiksee1932 7 months ago

Having read Dikotter’s other books, I am preordering without hesitation. Granular but not meandering; always getting to the point. Excited!

@thekeytohealth-h1x 7 months ago

Great conversation on China! Truly eye opening. Thank you.

@GallatinLife 7 months ago

Great discussion. Ordered his book & looking forward to the read.

@SpontaneouslyDeliberate 7 months ago (edited)

John saved that last conversation at the end. There is a way to make the point that all lands are controlled through conquest while having reverence for the suffering and death involved in the process. Up until John's last comments, the panel was failing.

@peredavi 7 months ago (edited)

Glad to see Professor D on again.
It is easy to see now what a huge mistake. It was to bring China into WTO and send so much of our manufacturing to China.

@ycloon 7 months ago

Thank you for bringing on Dr Dikotter. Always a treat.

@VincentFulco 7 months ago

I heard from a Chinese-American friend; born in NYC and based in a first-tier city for over a decade, that China is not governable except by extreme force. Shocked me to no end since he's been a huge beneficary of democracy.