China isn't an easy country to report on.
It's big and its people are encouraged to be suspicious of the foreign press.
But I loved the six years I spent there
and I'm grateful to Chinese people who talked to me about their lives
and how they see their country's place in the world.
The hardest task is working out what China's leaders think.
They almost never give interviews to Western media and so a big part of the job
is finding scholars who really understand the ruling elite.
My guest today is one such scholar.
Da Wei is a professor of international relations at Qinghua University where he also runs a think tank.
But for 20 years, he worked at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.
That's one of the most important centers for foreign policy research with close links to China's security establishment.
He came to our studios in London to talk about China's ambitions at home and abroad.
Professor Da Wei, welcome to Inside Geopolitics.
Thank you, David, for having me.
It's really great honor, great pleasure to be here at the Economist Studio.
Well, it's brilliant for us to have someone with your level of inside knowledge on the show here in London.
And I saw you, I think it was only last month in Beijing.
And that whole trip I was struck by the mood.
I hadn't been in China for six months and there was just this kind of mood of confidence.