I was walking on my way home on 54TH street Manhattan New York. One of my favorite things is to take a longer route and listen to this podcast. Two years ago I was in Shanghai China witnessing the lockdown and the three years of pandemic. China has become a happy memory where I can never go back to and the future is at stake in this one man’s hands. I hope my country could get better and people could be truly happy, and the existence of journalism as such is a powerful weapon to balance dictatorship and censorship.

Such an interesting and amazing story! I have learned a lot from this documentary which has broadened my understanding, Knowledge and more importantly the state of which Chinese people or society are affected by the traditions of the communist party. Applauding the work and hopefully the world will understand the lessons learned from this documentary 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾

An objective look at one of the most important people on the planet. This really helped me understand the basics of who Xi is and what drives him. A very different person to other big leaders, and clearly a person that will influence world history for better and worse. I love the personal connections he has with everyday Americans, and I worry about his view of what makes China stronger.

Background and insight into one of the most, if not the most consequential individual in the world for the next 1-2 decades.

I declare war against you!🔫🗡️🪦⚰️⚔️🛡️💣🧨🪓⛓️💉🛡️🔪🔨⚒️⛏️

Good background on Xi but leftist bias sprinkled throughout. The irony in covering chinas censorship apparatus while not mentioning how the democrats mounted similar campaigns against “misinformation” was lost to the host I guess 😂

Good storytelling

To that one review that correct the pronunciation…. It really is NOT like “she”. It’s more like “Sea” if any. It’s a sound where you bite down and stretch your lips, and not perk your lips as “sh” Source: speaks mandarin all my life…🙃 Otherwise: nice insight and perspective. I wouldn’t say this is completely anti-China, but certainly anti this one leader, but they did it with certain decency imo. Depending one where you sit on the political spectrum this might not be your thoughts.

Very in-depth and fascinating information

Interesting. Reporter is mistaken in the pronunciation of “Xi” which was super distracting. It’s not like “C” or “Sea”. It’s like “She”.

I finished the entire series in a couple of days. Well done, Ms Wong!!! I had lived in Shanghai from 2014 to July 2022. In their words, I had lived through the nightmare of the Shanghai lockdown. Listening to this podcast gave me deeper insight into why the insanity continues to fester and grow in China.

Really enjoyed the first 3-4 episodes about Xi. The research was well done and excellent story telling as well as production. However, once the podcast decided to bring a typical western narrative on human rights, the podcast lost a lot of credibility. Human right ms vs separationist movement in any country is a complicate issue where there is no right or wrong answer because context/culture/history is all different. Comparing Xi’s Covid response to Chernobyl was also forced to fit a western narrative again by the podcast. Please keep in mind that WHO, Faucci, US Media, the US president all lied about Covid too. Again, I truly enjoyed the research and story on young Xi.

I’ve always been extremely interested in Xi & this was such an informative Podcast! Thanks for all your hard work on understanding China and it’s Party!

Really great podcast. I decided to give it a try after several good recommendations (including Ezra Klein), and I’m really happy I did! It is narrated so well that I could barely put the phone down and was always really looking forward to the next episode. And by the way this is heroic journalism. After this podcast I’d immediately subscribe to The Economist If I didn’t have a subscription yet.

this is such a great podcast, very informative especially since I grew up in China but know very little about Chinese politics. Please do a season 2 on maybe a former president, someone high up in the Xi administration, or maybe dissect an aspect of Chinese politics!

What a great podcast, thoroughly enjoyed it. Hope the Economist has more of these in the pipeline.

Really excellent well-researched and incredibly richly detailed and sourced biography of Xi Jinping. Please add another season with current Xi Jinping analysis.

Is China on the right track? No. Are the children of the current generation going to have better life? No. When will changes happen? During change of leadership, and we do not China’s next leader any time soon. So no hope till at least Xi died or CCP collapse like the Soviet Union.

First 2-3 episodes were good. It showed a lot of history related to Xi’s coming to power. Then it went awry with western propaganda and no longer interesting. In the bonus episode when the hosts talk about Liang Jia He, it’s clear that Chinese propaganda is about enduring pain and making things better for the most and western propaganda is about mocking a poor kid doing crazy stuff because that’s the best they can do. I’d like to see the Economist making more meaningful contributions other than repeating the old western whinings.

This is a fantastic primer on China's history, understanding the relationship between the China Communist Party ("#CCP") and China's government (something people have a hard time grasping), and China's dictator, Xi. China is and has been America's most significant geopolitical threat in the 21st Century, and the objectivity, professionalism, and quality of this podcast series are especially surprising, considering this is from a left-leaning legacy media outlet, but as Sue discusses in the podcast, this is no longer a partisan issue. I would argue this is due mainly to the last administration's leadership which confronted this issue head-on after decades of failed bi-partisan policies that saw #China steal anywhere between $225 and $600 billion of IP annually from America without any consequences. As we continue to see an ongoing #genocide in China while corporate interests like the National Basketball Association (NBA) and The Walt Disney Company turn a blind eye, protests from its repressed people due to its zero #covid policy, and ongoing tensions in the #southchinasea, this series is more relevant and will only become more relevant every passing day. The CCP and China's elite, including Chairman Xi's daughter, have been sending their next generation of leaders to America for decades to study and learn from us and sometimes, even infiltrate our system; it is about time Americans do the same and learn from our adversary. I cannot applaud the Economist enough, and I will become a subscriber solely because of this amazing work.

As a Chinese myself, I enjoyed listening to this podcast a lot and had recommended to my friends too. Great job! If there is one thing i can think of will improve the listening experience is the pronounce of “Xi” is not correct, and the correct pronunciation doesn’t sounds like the word “sea”. Therefor I got confused a lot of times because it sounded like “she” sometimes so I lost track of who is the subject. Actually the way how Alice Su (who did the interview with the host in the episode: “Bonus: behind the propaganda”) pronounced “Xi” is correct. All in all I loved it, it’s very well done and insightful, looking forward for future season!

I’m passionate about politics, and since lately it’s a little hard to start conversations about the changing world, I I have turned to podcasts. This is a tremendously well done podcast, from the field work to the sources and insights on what’s happening in this constantly changing world. :) I love it!!

I cannot stop listening to this podcast once started! I am Chinese and have lived in the US for half my life. Growing up in a working-class household in a small town in China, I was not particularly interested in politics, especially because all my family explicitly told me to stay away from it. However, I have either experienced or witnessed many of the events described in the episodes. It never occurred to me to connect the dots, and there were so many things I did not know growing up due to censorship. This podcast has given so much insight, and made me more interested in the state of affairs in China during this turbulent time. I hope there will be more seasons/episodes in the future.

Exceptional. I, along with my family, lived in Shanghai for twelve years (2008-2020). I have the pleasure and privilege to work with exceptional people who both love and question the direction of their country. Something I think most countries can understand. This podcast was smart, informative and most importantly provocative. Thank you to everyone involved.

As someone from Wuhan who witnessed the beginning of Covid 19 I’m impressed by the extensiveness and accuracy of the stories. The world deserves to see what the real China and China’s leader is. Anyone denying this or calling this biased is either dumb or blindsided.

When is season 2 coming?

Necessary and incredible reporting.

Well researched and presented. But be prepared to constantly change the volume if listening in a car on the hwy

The bias is wild, truly do not waste your time. The first episode got me in a little bit with a minimum of eye rolling but in the second episode it goes badly awry. Not surprising from The Economist, it’s basically a propaganda machine for the American right. (And no, not all negative reviews are written by communist spies 🙄)

Well researched, and presented in an interesting way. This is one of the best podcasts!

Excellent podcast, really well done. Ignore the very negative reviews of dubious 😉 origin.

I am younger than Xi. I was born in the US so I wasn’t aware life in China, the government, etc. My parents left before 1949. As I explore my family history, I find this podcast very interesting. It helps me understand what could happen in the future…very nice work!

Great series on changes in life in China under Xi. Highly recommend.

And I understand myself better after listening to this

Sue-Lin Wong at least isn’t shy about her bias, she hints at her objective in making this podcast about Xi Jinping is to exact vengeance on the fact that she wasn’t allowed back into China as a journalist because she refused to follow the law of the country. She of course says she’s a victim of bullying, and doesn’t mention which laws she violated, but she sets out to make a documentary about Xi Jinping while OUTSIDE of China, with little access to sources from within other than a few contacts she had made before she was kicked out, most of which are a few dissenters. Some of her bias can be attributed to her young age and inexperience in life, as well as her impressionable mind as an aspiring idealist, unfortunately people who aren’t fully aware of the facts will be tainted and biased by her silly views. There are several examples of how she does this: for example when she talks about Wuhan’s lockdown, and residents screaming out into the night, she interjects with false statements like “their discontent for the party was at the limit.” In fact, what people were yelling were cheering chants, cheering each other on, saying “Wuhan will beat this virus,” and venting in the face of this scary and frustrating pandemic. If you watch many of the videos that have been posted all over the web (inside and outside of China) you can hear that throughout. But somehow she thought it was “discontent of the party’s policies.”? She does a lot of interjecting at other times as well, like when she interviewed a gentleman who was held captive at the Uyghur re-education camps. The man said when he was brought in, was asked to strip down and spread his legs and bend forward. Then he said all he heard was laughter and comments about “how weak he looked.” She interjects that “he was sexually molested” even though the gentleman didn’t mention that, and sounded more like he was humiliated because they “laughed,” while doing a cavity search. So searching for drugs or weapons before entering a high security facility like a prison is now “sexual molestation”? Guantanamo and other high security facilities in the west do similar procedures to ensure no contraband, weapons, drugs, etc are brought into a prison, but somehow in THIS instance it’s surely sexual assault? All throughout the documentary she intersperses facts, and then misleads with guiding opinions that are biased and just blatantly seem to misunderstand the situation. It’s surprising that this comes from The Economist. You figure they would try their best to report serious facts, find both sides of an argument, and let educated readers and listeners make their own interpretation, but no, she is dead set on pushing the narrative she wants to push out. Honestly, I really wish western reporters would show both sides of the arguments instead of trying to color everything with their own personal agendas and mislead and further divide the world and nations. Let’s do better “The Economist”!

Really well produced. Thank you!

Great and informative series about an individual we don’t know enough about here in the US. Very excited to hear what Sue-Lin works on next!

Outstanding series! Thank you.

Well presented, engaging, and informative.

Thank you for the great job of putting together this podcast. It is absolutely very comprehensive and clear on what was/is going on in China and what made us here. I started using Weibo since 2010 and had witnessed a lot of those events and had seen the change of the atmosphere. I both cried and laughed and felt very heavy hearted listening to the episodes. I was very invested in listening and thank you for the high quality reports. I am also wondering if Economist could also make a podcast episode about the raise and suppress of the Chinese feminism some day. There are a lot of good stories to dig into

So tired of playing a favorite podcast and having this come on as if it’s actually that show. Tired of hearing about him. Get views on your own for your show.

Good to have on in the background, you might pick up a few facts. The incorrect pronunciation of “Xi” literally throughout the entire podcast drove me batty. Wish they had fixed that, it had a material impact on the experience.

I would be interested know how westerners feel about Trump administration shift China-US relations, it feels like the pandemic really revealed some deep divided issues we have for a long time.

I’m an expat living in China. I really liked the first half of the series. There was some really interesting facts there. It really changes my view of where he comes from. I think the second half falters. Xi kind of disappears from the narrative and it’s about his administration. I wanted to learn more about his time as president, but the show doesn’t offer much. I think this project would have been much better as 20 episodes.

Great job in putting together this podcast. Although definitely not a deep and comprehensive bio of Xi, it is brave and informative. I have recommended this to my friends. But I have to note a correction: Xi is pronounced like “she” (but in second tone) not “sea”. I am Chinese and I speak mandarin very well. You just need to listen to any Chinese official broadcast mentioning Xi to confirm.

I left the four hours of this podcast still mystified on who Xi Jinping really is. 80% of the air time was spent describing events in China while 20% was spent describing Xi Jingling himself, those ratios really need to be flipped. When describing him much was from official speeches and even US official cables, little was from people with direct contact who really know them. Perhaps that’s an impossible order, Xi got to where he was precisely because he is an enigma. If that’s the case I would have drastically shortened the podcast and just focused on Xi himself, following a Robert Caro format of zeroing in on major events that made him who he is and where power reveals.

What an astounding piece of journalism. A great overview of the reign of Xi. Eye-opening.

This podcast series is brave, enlightening, thoughtful, and groundbreaking. Congratulations to this team and to the Economist for the amazing journalism. I would love to hear this sort of podcast dive into other regimes around the world (e.g., Hungary, Brazil) to help us understand them better. Thanks Economist!!

I’m a big fan and subscriber of the Economist. I find its reporting to be intellectually honest. However, this reporting on Xi falls way short of the standards I expected from the Economist. There are a lot of western hypocrisy and lecturing (as China claims). For example, the assertion that Chinese films are just propaganda. I can argue that US films are also full of western propaganda. More importantly, this podcast’s main objective was to explain how Xi’s past created the leader he is now. I came away with no new insights. I’m an American and not a Chinese sympathizer, and that’s why I expected more from this reporting.

Please listen to this podcast! Great reporting as expected from an Economist journalist. Comprehensive and authoritative. Brilliant work. Does as good a job as possible in the current techno-surveillance state to give voice to Chinese people. Chilling.