Elizabeth Economy is C. V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and soon to be Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She has written numerous books including The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (2018), By All Means Necessary: How China’s Resource Quest is Changing the World (2014), which she co-authored with Michael Levi, and The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future (2004). Economy is a leading expert on China’s foreign policy, including on environmental issues. In this interview, we asked her about how China’s role in the world has evolved in recent years, including the motivations behind its newfound assertiveness and the challenges that will pose for the global order.
Elizabeth EconomyIllustration by Kate Copeland
Q: How has China’s participation in global governance and international institutions changed in recent years?
A: Xi J