Mackinder Forum Colin Gray Memorial Lecture - Virtual Seminar #87 & Video Recording: Gordon G. Chang, “Will China Go to War?”

We were lucky to have Gordon Chang share his expertise with us on the subject of China's position on the global stage and Xi Jinping's risk tolerance.

The recording is embedded below. Continue scrolling for the abstract and biography.

Abstract
The most consequential developments in the world today are taking place inside China's Community Party.  These developments will determine whether America goes to war or remains at peace.
Unfortunately, we do not have much visibility into what is happening inside the Chinese regime.  For the most part, we can see only symptoms.  Those symptoms tell us the People's Liberation Army is in turmoil and the country is entering an economic crisis. 
Because of the turmoil and crisis, Chinese ruler Xi Jinping now has a low threshold of risk.  In other words, he has incentives to act recklessly.
Xi cannot stop talking about war, and he is mobilizing all of China, civilian and military, for battle.
China can start a war at any time.  The Chinese regime can now take us by surprise.

Biography
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Great U.S.-China Tech War and Losing South Korea, booklets released by Encounter Books.  His previous books are Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World and The Coming Collapse of China, both from Random House.
Chang lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades, most recently in Shanghai, as Counsel to the American law firm Paul Weiss and earlier in Hong Kong as Partner in the international law firm Baker & McKenzie. 
His writings on China and North Korea have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, The American Conservative, Commentary, National Review, Barron's, and The Daily Beast. He is a columnist at Newsweek and writes regularly for The Hill.  
He has spoken at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Yale, and other universities and at The Brookings Institution, The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, RAND, the American Enterprise Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and other institutions.  He has given briefings at the National Intelligence Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Pentagon.  He has also spoken before industry and investor groups including Bloomberg, Sanford Bernstein, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia.  Chang has appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.  
Chang has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS, the BBC, and Bloomberg Television. He is a regular co-host and guest on The John Batchelor Show
Outside the United States he has spoken in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, The Hague, London, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver.
He served two terms as a trustee of Cornell University.