Wednesday, March 14, 2018 | 5:30 PM EDT - 7:00 PM EDT

Dorsey & Whitney, LLP |, New York, NY


Four decades of non-stop economic growth has encouraged the view that China’s ruling elite comprises men of supernatural technocratic ability who can successfully navigate any political, social, or economic challenge. However, according to Professor Carl Minzner, China’s glossy façade obscures mounting social pressures and the increasing brittleness of the regime’s power. In a new book, End of an Era: How China’s Authoritarian Revival is Undermining its Rise, Fordham University law professor and China expert Carl Minzner examines the historical origins and contemporary implications of Beijing’s turn to repression. From increasing debt to labor unrest, Professor Minzner details how today’s challenges to continued stability are rooted in a process of the slow jettisoning of reforms beginning in the 1990s. Professor Minzner joined us on March 14, 2018, for a discussion of his book and the future of reform in China.

Carl Minzner

Carl Minzner is an expert in Chinese law and governance. He has written extensively on these topics in both academic journals and the popular press, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Christian Science Monitor. Professor Minzner’s academic works include “China After the Reform Era” (Journal of Democracy, 2015), “The Rise and Fall of Chinese Legal Education” (Fordham International Law Journal, 2013), and “China’s Turn Against Law” (American Journal of Comparative Law, 2011).

Prior to joining Fordham in 2011, Professor Minzner was associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. He previously served as senior counsel for the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Yale-China Association legal education fellow at the Northwest Institute of Politics and Law in Xi’an. He also worked as an associate at McCutchen & Doyle (Palo Alto, CA) and clerked for Judge Raymond Clevenger of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.