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As discussed in his new book The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, Dexter Roberts described how surging income inequality, an unfair social welfare system, and rising social tensions blocked China’s continued economic rise with implications for companies and countries around the world. He discussed how China was struggling to leave behind its “Factory to the World” growth model, and included its hundreds of millions of left-behind migrant workers into a more innovative, consumption-driven economy and why that meant China may not become the superpower the world expects. He also discussed how COVID-19 has exacerbated the already huge social disparities in China further complicating its ongoing economic transition and putting it at risk of falling into the middle income trap. And he discussed how global supply chain diversification was affecting China and whether a change in U.S. presidents was likely to do anything to reduce the growing tensions between Washington and Beijing.  

Dexter Tiff Roberts is an award-winning writer and speaker on China now serving as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council Asia Security Initiative and an adjunct instructor in political science at the University of Montana as well as a Fellow at the university’s Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center. Previously he was China bureau chief and Asia News Editor at Bloomberg Businessweek, based in Beijing for more than two decades. He has reported from all of China’s provinces and regions including Tibet and Xinjiang, covering the rise of companies and entrepreneurs, manufacturing and migrants, demography and civil society. He has also reported from North Korea, Mongolia and Cambodia, on China’s growing economic and political influence. Roberts’ first book, The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World, was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2020 and he created and now publishes a weekly newsletter called Trade War. He has a BA in Political Science from Stanford University and Master of International Affairs from Columbia University and studied Mandarin Chinese at Taiwan Normal University.