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About the event

By tying profits to political acquiescence, the Chinese Communist Party is forcing companies and governments around the world to accept its rules. The coronavirus pandemic marked the first time that the Party deployed its tool kit of economic coercion on an issue directly related to the health and well-being of quite literally every person in the world. But Western democracies aren’t helpless victims in Beijing’s game. The West created the conditions for the rise of authoritarian capitalism by divorcing political values from market structures.

Written by one of the first American journalists to expose China’s covert influence operations in the United States, Beijing Rules includes headline-making stories of Western institutions bowing to Beijing’s pressure. Grounded in deep investigative reporting, it sounds the alarm about what we must do to prevent the loss of freedoms we now take for granted. Please join the International Forum for a one-on-one discussion with Bethany Allen to discuss her book and the wider implications of China’s international economic coercion.

speakers

Bethany Allen is the China reporter at Axios, where she writes high-impact investigations, exclusives, and analysis about China, with a focus on how China projects power and influence beyond its own borders. She is the author of Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World. Before joining Axios, she served as the lead reporter for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ China Cables project, a major leak of classified Chinese government documents revealing the inner workings of mass internment camps in Xinjiang. She was previously a staff editor and contributing reporter at Foreign Policy magazine, where she wrote investigations, deeply reported narratives, and analysis related to China.
 
Kevin Sheives is the Deputy Director for the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy. He helps oversee the Forum’s staff and research on authoritarian influence, disinformation, emerging technology, and transnational kleptocracy. Kevin served nearly fifteen years in the U.S. government with the State Department’s China Desk and the Global Engagement Center, and in positions at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Department of Defense, and the U.S. House of Representatives. Kevin received a Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in International Relations from Baylor University. He is proficient in Mandarin, and often served as a summer English teacher in Xinjiang, China. His writings have appeared in War on the Rocks, The Diplomat, Asia Nikkei, and the International Forum’s platforms.

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