When Xi Jinping took over the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, he began a new chapter in China’s history—one that would come to be defined above all by his grip on power. Xi overhauled not only the CCP but also China’s economy, military, and role in the world. Yet no matter how secure his power may be—and no matter his recent hot-mic musings about living to 150—what comes after Xi, and how it comes, is an increasingly central question in Chinese politics.
As the political scientists Tyler Jost and Daniel Mattingly wrote recently in Foreign Affairs, “For any authoritarian regime, political succession is a moment of peril . . . and for all its strengths, the CCP is no exception.” And that’s not just a risk for the future. The uncertainty and the jockeying that the succession question spurs is already starting to shape China’s present.
To Jost and Mattingly, there’s more at stake than just the matter of who will follow Xi. They note: “The drama created by a struggle over the succession . . . is unlikely to stay inside China’s borders.” They joined Deputy Editor Chloe Fox to discuss the nature of Xi’s rule, his attempt to define his legacy, and what that will mean for China in the coming months, years, and decades.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
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Poland’s View From the Frontline of Europe
In early September, around 20 Russian drones entered Poland’s airspace. NATO and Polish forces scrambled fighter jets to shoot them down, but not before several had traveled hundreds of miles into Polish territory.
To Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, the incursion was not just a test of NATO’s resolve. It was a reminder of the precarious position of the alliance’s frontline states as the war in Ukraine grinds on for its third year, and as Donald Trump upends the basic bargain of the transatlantic alliance.
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Sikorski on the morning of September 24 in New York, where he was attending the UN General Assembly. They discussed the ongoing threat from Russia and what it will take, in Washington and in European capitals, to prevent it from escalating. But more than that, Sikorski is grappling with a moment of sharp change in geopolitics—trying to understand both why the old order collapsed and how to navigate the new order just now taking shape.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
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Is America Ready for the Age of Cyber Warfare?
In 2024, the U.S. government discovered that Chinese hackers had penetrated a huge swath of the American telecommunications system—and remained there for years. That attack came to be known as Salt Typhoon. China has not only managed to steal the data and surveil the communications of hundreds of millions of Americans. It also embedded itself in the United States’ most important infrastructure, giving Beijing a crucial advantage in a conflict.
Anne Neuberger was until recently the top cybersecurity official on the National Security Council. She was in that position when Salt Typhoon was discovered. And to her, the attack is not just an isolated incident of cyberespionage. Rather, it is evidence of American weakness, and Chinese dominance, in a central arena of national security.
“Decades after the widespread adoption of the Internet opened a new realm of geopolitical contestation,” she writes in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, “the United States has fallen behind, failing to secure a vast digital home front.” Neuberger warns that, as artificial intelligence grows ever more sophisticated, the threat of a cyberattack that could paralyze the country in a time of crisis has never been higher.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
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The World That Tariffs Will Make
Donald Trump has been railing against the global economic order from the start of his political career. But in his second term as president, he has turned that critique into blistering action. In just five months, the trade war that started with his April tariffs has completely reshaped the global economy—and struck at the very heart of the trade system that emerged after the end of the Cold War.
To Michael Froman, the diagnosis is terminal. Froman, now the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, which publishes Foreign Affairs, served as the U.S. trade representative in the Obama administration. “Even if pieces of the old order manage to survive,” he writes in the new issue of Foreign Affairs, “the damage is done: there is no going back.” Trump’s “America first” trade policy, and China’s analogous strategy, herald a new order of protectionism, unilateralism, and mercantilism.
Froman warns that economic anarchy could ensue. But as he sees it, any hope of resurrecting the corpse of the old order is delusional. “Nostalgia,” he argues, “is not a strategy.” Rather, the task at hand is to build a new “global economy shaped by rules even without a global rules-based system.”
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
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Can Israel Save Itself?
It has been almost two years since Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel and the start of the war in Gaza. Those many months of combat have left Hamas severely weakened, with its leadership eviscerated and its military capabilities crippled. But as the war enters a new phase, with Israeli troops pushing into Gaza City, the central question of the war’s endgame remains unsettled. Israeli leaders have consistently refused to offer a clear vision for the war’s aftermath, for what happens on “the day after.”
According to Ami Ayalon, that failure has been disastrous, for Palestinians as well as for Israelis. It is a recipe for conflict grinding on indefinitely, along with the attendant bloodshed and ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.
Ayalon was the commander of the Israeli Navy and the head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency. As he sees it, Israel’s long-term security depends on recognizing the rights and aspirations of Palestinians, and the creation of a Palestinian state—one that includes both Gaza and the West Bank. Ayalon joined Senior Editor Eve Fairbanks to reflect on the strategic errors that led to this point and how the world can reckon with those missteps to find a better path forward for both Israelis and Palestinians.
You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
Foreign Affairs invites you to join its editor, Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, as he talks to influential thinkers and policymakers about the forces shaping the world. Whether the topic is the war in Ukraine, the United States’ competition with China, or the future of globalization, Foreign Affairs’ weekly podcast offers the kind of authoritative commentary and analysis that you can find in the magazine and on the website.
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