April 2026 Wonky China - Joseph Torigian, CFR

On April 15, we will welcome Joseph Torigan, senior fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and associate professor at American University’s School of International Service. Joseph will discuss his book The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping. Drawing on an array of new documents, interviews, diaries, and periodicals, The Party's Interests Come First tells the story of Xi Zhongxun, a man who spent his entire life struggling to balance his own feelings with the party's demands as he served the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for more than seven decades. Joseph will discuss his book and share what Xi Zhongxun's story can tell us about both Xi Jinping and the nature of the party he leads.

Moderating will be Rosie Levine of the Wonky China Happy Hour team.

5:00pm doors open
5:15pm talk begins
5:30pm Q&A with Joseph
5:45-7:00pm Happy Hour

*Please note: tickets are free but we have limited quantities to 2 per order. If you have additional friends who wish to join, please send them the link and ask them to reserve their own tickets.

Joseph Torigian is senior fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also an associate professor at American University’s School of International Service and a center associate of the University of Michigan’s Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies. Torigian studies the politics of authoritarian regimes with a specific focus on elite power struggles, civil-military relations, and grand strategy. He uses primary sources, rare books, and interviews to provide new accounts of historical milestones in two nations of crucial geopolitical importance: China and Russia. In particular, he investigates how leaders in those nations secure themselves against threats at home and abroad. Torigian’s research agenda contributes to several fields and disciplines: international relations, comparative politics, security studies, history, and Chinese and Russian studies.

His first book, Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China After Stalin and Mao was published in 2022, and his second book, The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping was published in 2025. Torigian’s current research agenda looks at nuclear weapons and the military-industrial complex in China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Chang Chang