The Hoover Institution Program on the US, China, and the World invites you to The Broken China Dream: How to Reform Revived Totalitarianism on Thursday, February 5th, 2026 from 4:00pm-5:30pm in the Shultz Auditorium, George P. Shultz Building.
When China embarked on its transformative journey of modernization in 1979, many believed the country’s turn toward capitalism would put its totalitarian past to rest and mark the birth of a democratic, open society. Instead, China reverted to a neo-totalitarian state, one backed by one of the fastest-growing, most formidable economies on earth. The book, “The Broken China Dream”, authored by Minxin Pei, pulls back the curtain on the regime of strongman Xi Jinping, revealing why the reforms of the post-Mao era have been reversed on nearly every front—and why the world failed to see it coming.
Join us for a conversation with Minxin Pei as he delves into the dynamics of China's political landscape, discussing how the dreams of reform have been overshadowed by the resurgence of totalitarianism under Xi Jinping, and why understanding these developments is crucial for comprehending China today.
About the Speakers
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 U.S.-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).
Glenn Tiffert is a distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-chairs Hoover’s program on the US, China, and the World, and also leads Stanford’s participation in the National Science Foundation’s SECURE program, a $67 million effort authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 to enhance the security and integrity of the US research enterprise. He works extensively on the security and integrity of ecosystems of knowledge, particularly academic, corporate, and government research; science and technology policy; and malign foreign interference.
