Late in October, the Communist Party of China concluded the Fourth Plenary session of the 20th Central Committee. Plenums as critically important gatherings of the Party’s elite. This one outlined the vision for China’s overall development for the next five years.

The nutshell version of the long document that was issued was that Xi Jinping’s leadership has taken China down the right path of development and amassing power. So, we should expect more of that—more continuity in policy. In that sense, the Chinese leadership appears extremely confident that history and momentum are on its side. That said, the Party also believes that China is in an era where risks and opportunities coexist.

So when it comes to the balance, do the opportunities outweigh the risks? Or is it the other way around? If you look at developments within China, power has become more centralised and political discipline more exacting. Abroad, China faces a world less willing to accommodate its ambitions, from tense ties with the United States to friction with its neighbours and rising technological barriers.

So how should we read China in 2025? What does the Fourth Plenum reveal about the direction of economic policy, inner-Party debates, the state of the PLA, and the issue of political stability?

To unpack these questions, in this episode of the Great Power Show, I speak with Neil Thomas, Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. Neil’s one of the most astute and thoughtful watchers of Chinese politics. Our conversation begins with how the world looks from Xi Jinping’s vantage point, and what that tells us about China’s evolving political logic and global ambitions. Along the way, we explore China’s current trajectory. We end by contemplating a China without Xi at the helm, and what the next chapter of leadership might mean for Beijing and the world.

As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe and rate the episode; and if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

There’s a paradox at the heart of the India–Russia relationship.

On one level, there are no direct conflicts of interest. In fact, at a moment like the present, when even trusted partners like the United States appear willing to coerce New Delhi, Moscow seems like a reliable friend. It remains a key defense supplier, and now also an important energy partner, offering deep discounts to keep its own economy afloat. The relationship with Moscow also gives Delhi a degree of maneuverability in the wider Eurasian space.

And yet, there are growing limitations, and increasing costs, that this friendship brings. Beyond the 25% tariff penalty that the Trump administration has imposed on India for buying Russian oil, there are deeper strategic concerns. Russia’s increasing dependence on China raises anxieties in Delhi; its tentative outreach to Pakistan creates unease; and of course, the ongoing war in Ukraine continues to complicate India’s ties with Europe.

All of these issues are likely to return to the headlines come December, when Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Delhi. But to understand the stakes of that visit, and indeed, the future of this partnership, we need to step back and look at Russia itself: the political system, the worldview of its leaders, and the strategic logic that drives its behaviour.

How stable is the Russian state today? What kind of world order does Moscow want to build? And how does it really see India and the Indo-Pacific amid a world of shifting alignments?

To unpack these questions, in this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak to Aleksei Zakharov, a Research Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation’s Strategic Studies Programme in New Delhi. Our conversation begins with a look at how Moscow views the world; what kind of an order does it crave? How has the leadership managed economic and political stability while engaging in what seems to be a protracted conflict in Ukraine.

We also discuss how Russia conceives of great power competition between the United States and China? How deep are Moscow’s equities with Beijing? And how does it position itself in the Indo-Pacific, a region where its influence remains limited but its ambitions endure.

As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe and rate the episode; and if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Look around the world today; there are few certainties. The global order is in a state of flux. And that means that every country is rethinking old assumptions, and even old partnerships. There’s a lot of jockeying for wriggle room; a lot of signalling to partners and rivals. And often in the media environment that we live in today, signals get taken to mean substantive or even structural shifts. Alas, sometimes a signal is simply that; a signal.

So what should we pay attention to if we want to understand the trajectory of countries and the international system? Interests, of course. But what else? What are the structural factors that students and watchers of International Relations should study?

To understand these dynamics better, in this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak to Stephen Nagy, Professor of Politics and International Studies International Christian University in Tokyo. Stephen is a critic of the snapshot analysis that permeates the media environment. He contends that instead of photo-ops and rhetoric, one should focus on structural factors like budgetary allocations and force posture. In other words, it’s not the stated but the revealed preference that matters in geopolitics.

Our conversation also focussed on the nature of US-China competition. More importantly, what is the Trump administration’s America First agenda, and how does it tie in with this great power competition? And of course, how are Japan and other countries in East Asia contending with these turbulent times?

As always, I hope you enjoy the discussion. Please like, share, subscribe and rate the episode; and if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Read Prof. Nagy’s piece in Japan Times: International relations analysis needs to grow up

About: The Great Power Show is a bi-weekly podcast featuring candid conversations and thought-provoking interviews with leading scholars, thinkers and practitioners on the geopolitical and geo-economic changes shaping our world.

The past eight months have been among the strangest in recent times. The Trump administration has given substance to its rhetoric on tariffs, redrawing the landscape of the world economy. There have been some deals, but the details are scant. Ambiguity, it seems, is not just a negotiating position, but also evident in outcomes. On the surface, allies and partners are seemingly being punished, while challengers and rivals are being courted. There’s a deep sense of coherence in policy.

So what is it that the Trump administration and the MAGA coalition that he rode to power truly want from the world? What is the economic order that they desire? Is there even a shared vision of the economic order America is trying to build? And behind the scenes, who is actually pulling the levers—on trade, on industrial policy, and on economic security?

To unpack all this I reached out to Peter Harrell, a leading expert on US economic statecraft. Peter is a Non-Resident Fellow at Carnegie and hosts the fantastic Security Economics podcast. Our conversation delves into the thinking driving the Trump administration’s policies on trade and economic security, the nature of the deals that the US has inked with some of its partners and allies, how Washington is recalibrating its China strategy, and what all of this means for India and the global economic order.

As always, I hope you enjoy the conversation. Please like, share, subscribe and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, feel free to reach out to me on my email.

About: The Great Power Show is a bi-weekly podcast featuring candid conversations and thought-provoking interviews with leading scholars, thinkers and practitioners on the geopolitical and geo-economic changes shaping our world.

At the beginning of 2025, if you asked someone in New Delhi, you probably would have heard a response of cautious optimism. India seemed well-positioned to deal with the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Trade talks were likely to be difficult, but there was a sense of possibility. The strategic logic of the relationship, one assumed, was robust enough to ensure close engagement.

But today, the relationship feels deeply strained. We’ve arrived at an odd inflection point, one where deep strategic convergence coexists with growing political friction. There’s a bitterness in the air that hasn’t been seen for a long, long time.

To make sense of this moment, and to step back and look at the bigger picture of India’s place in the world, I reached out to someone who knows the craft of diplomacy inside out. Nirupama Menon Rao has had a remarkable career: she has served as India’s ambassador to both the United States and China, and high commissioner to Sri Lanka. She was also only the second woman ever to hold the post of India’s Foreign Secretary.

This is a wide-ranging conversation, from the personal to the geopolitical, from Washington and Beijing to New Delhi. We dig into the challenges and opportunities in India–US relations today, the balancing act with China and Russia. We also zoom out further, to ask: Are we truly in a new era of great power competition between the US and China? Or is this turbulence the messy reality of multipolarity?

Ambassador Rao offers an insightful and poetic take on the world today, comparing it to a revolt in the Orchestra. The conductor has lost some authority. The concertmaster is challenging him for leadership. And the percussion section is drumming its own beat. So, how does one navigate this environment?

As always, I hope you enjoy the conversation. Please like, share, subscribe and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, feel free to reach out to me on my email.

About: The Great Power Show is a bi-weekly podcast featuring candid conversations and thought-provoking interviews with leading scholars, thinkers and practitioners on the geopolitical and geo-economic changes shaping our world.

Over the past few months, I’ve often found myself overwhelmed by the pace and nature of global events. Each day seems to bring something that overturns long-held assumptions—norms I had internalised growing up in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s been disorienting. At times, it feels as if we’ve entered a new nihilistic and transactional world.

It was in this frame of mind that I stumbled upon Prof. Steven Smith’s Open Yale Course on Political Philosophy. The series offered not just a masterful survey of Western political thought, from Socrates to Tocqueville and his contemporaries, but also a welcome opportunity to step back from the churn of headlines and reflect on the enduring debates they echo.

How are economic globalisation and the resurgence of populism and nationalism reshaping the relationship between the individual, the community, and the state? How did earlier thinkers grapple with these tensions, and how are today’s societies addressing them? What does justice mean in our time? Does it inevitably imply a march towards progressivism? How should liberalism engage with patriotism? And to what extent is contemporary nationalism a reaction to the perceived failures of liberal cosmopolitanism?

With these questions in mind, I reached out to Prof. Smith, who graciously agreed to discuss them, along with his views on the current trajectory of American politics.

As always, I hope you enjoy the conversation. Please like, share, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, feel free to reach out to me on manoj@takshashila.org.in.

If you are interested in Prof. Smith’s recent works, do check out his books:

• Modernity and Its Discontents – Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow

• Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes

About: The Great Power Show is a bi-weekly podcast featuring candid conversations and thought-provoking interviews with leading scholars, thinkers and practitioners on the geopolitical and geo-economic changes shaping our world.

India’s global profile is rising. By the end of this decade, India will be the world’s third-largest economy. Diplomatically, it is also far more active as a member of key multilateral groupings. Arguably, India’s foreign policy today plays a bigger role in domestic politics than at any time since the Nehru years.

All of this is changing how Indians think about world affairs, leading to an increasing number of young people studying International Relations. In fact, over the past 25 years, there’s been a visible expansion of Indian universities offering IR courses. The discipline itself evolved from the margins of political science to the heart of it.

For decades, IR theory has remained anchored in Western experiences and epistemologies. But does that lens still suffice? Or is there a need to think through new, perhaps more rooted, ways of conceptualising power, order, and change?

In this episode, I speak with Atul Mishra, Associate Professor of International Relations at Shiv Nadar University, in India. Atul is a refreshingly original voice in the world of International Relations. His perspective is incisive, anchored in rigorous theory, yet deeply informed by empirical realities.

Our conversation begins by tracing his personal and intellectual journey before turning to bigger questions: What is theory for? Who is it serving? And does IR theory need to become fragmented accounting for culture and civilisation experiences? In other words, is there a need for an Indic IR or an IR with Chinese characteristics? From there, we take stock of the global order and the state of the idea of liberal democracy. Are the ideas of liberalism passé amid the rising tide of authoritarianism and under the weight of present-day realpolitik?

As always, I hope you enjoy the conversation. Please like, share, and rate the episode. And if you’d like to support the show or the work I do, feel free to reach out to me.

• - Atul’s Substack IR Wire

  - Atul’s Lecture on What is a liberal democracy?

• About: The Great Power Show is a bi-weekly podcast featuring candid conversations and thought-provoking interviews with leading scholars, thinkers and practitioners on the geopolitical and geo-economic changes shaping our world.

In China, political discourse is ample, yet often elusive. News reports and policy documents are dense with slogans and repetition. Despite this, the system also often speaks through silence. And that silence fuels questions.

What should one look for when trying to understand China’s political language? Can anything be understood from the stodgy language of Party-state media. Can the omission of a phrase from a communiqué be mere coincidence or does it have deeper meaning? This isn’t just about decoding propaganda; it’s about understanding how contestation, consensus, and control take shape in a system that rarely shows its hand.

In this episode of The Great Power Show, I speak to Katja Drinhausen, who heads the Chinese Politics & Society research program at the Mercator Institute of China Studies or MERICS in Germany. Katja is one of the most astute observers of the politics of the Communist Party of China.

I ask her to help us navigate Chinese politispeak, and its implications for China and the world. We also deliberate the concept of ideology. Is it really making a comeback in China? Or is ideology less a driver of policy and more a reflection of it? As Xi Jinping revives the language of struggle, what are we really witnessing?

And finally, we look outward, at how China tells its story to the world. From wolf warrior diplomacy to the push to “tell China’s story well,” we examine the institutions and impulses that shape Beijing’s external messaging. What’s the story China wants the world to believe? And is anyone buying it?

About: The Great Power Show is a bi-weekly podcast featuring candid conversations and thought-provoking interviews with leading scholars, thinkers and practitioners on the geopolitical and geo-economic changes shaping our world.