Book Talk | The Communist Party of China

The Communist Party of China:
Understanding the Durability of the World’s Most Powerful Political Organization
Edited by Ben Hillman and Fengyuan Ji, Cambridge University Press 2026

In this book talk, CIW Director Ben Hillman will chair a panel discussion about a new book on the Communist Party of China (co-edited with Fengyuan Ji, Cambridge University Press). The book is the product of a CIW project that brought together specialists from across ANU and the world to examine the Communist Party of China’s durability over more than seven decades of dramatic social and economic change. Ben will be joined on stage by several contributing authors, including Delia Lin (The University of Melbourne), Bingqin Li (The University of New South Wales), Anna Hayes (James Cook University) and Fengming Lu (ANU) to discuss the reasons for the Party’s continued grip on political power in China today. Themes include the mechanics and organization of one-party rule, ideology and discourse, technologies of social control, and adaptive policy making.

Speakers

Anna Hayes
Anna Hayes is a senior lecturer in International Relations at James Cook University and an Honorary Research Fellow at the East Asia Security Centre. Anna specialises in traditional and non-traditional threats to security, with a particular focus on the People’s Republic of China. She recently co-edited Chinese International Relations Theory: As Emerging from Practice and Policy, Routledge (2025) with Associate Professor Jonathan Ping and Professor Brett McCormick, and The Chinese in Papua New Guinea: Past, Present and Future, ANU Press (2024), with Professor Rosita Henry and Dr Michael Wood. 

Bingqin Li
Bingqin Li is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Chinese and Comparative Social Policy Stream at the Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney. A leading international expert on China’s social policy, Her research examines social policy governance, urbanisation, disability inclusion, active ageing, and digital transformation, with a sustained focus on China’s policy developments and comparative analysis between China and Australia. Underpinning her work is the conviction that contemporary China cannot be fully understood without a deep examination of how social policy is designed, governed, and contested. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, three books, and numerous policy reports. Professor Li serves as Co-Editor of Urban Governance (Elsevier), is a former Chair of the East Asian Social Policy Research Network, and has advised various UN agencies on social policy reform in China.

Delia Lin
Delia Lin is Associate Professor in Chinese Studies in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of Civilising Citizens in Post-Mao China, Understanding the Rhetoric of Suzhi (Routledge, 2017). Her current research focuses on ideology, law, education and social governance in contemporary China, where she examines large and diverse bodies of text to trace how ideas are developed and mobilised to support the institutional consolidation of an authoritarian, ideologically-driven regime.

Fengming Lu
Fengming Lu is a Lecturer in the Department of Political and Social Change, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. Fengming received a PhD in Political Science from Duke University in 2018. Between 2018 and 2020, he was a postdoctoral fellow of the Peking-Princeton Postdoctoral Program. His research interests include authoritarian politics, the role of information in politics, and political institutions in China. His previous works have been published in Political Communication and Economics of Education Review.

Moderator

Ben Hillman
Ben Hillman is the Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at The Australian National University and the Editor of The China Journal. Ben is a specialist in politics, public policy, and public administration in China. More broadly his research examines policies and mechanisms for promoting political inclusion and safeguarding minority rights. Ben is the author or editor of eight books on China, including Patronage and Power (Stanford University Press, 2014), Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang (with Gray Tuttle, Columbia University Press, 2016), Political and Social Control in China (with Chien-wen Kou, ANU Press, 2024), and The Communist Party of China (with Fengyuan Ji, Cambridge University Press, 2025).

Drinks reception at 5:30pm for 6pm start. Should you require a personal emergency evacuation plan, please contact ciw@anu.edu.au.