Zhang Weiwei is the director of the Institute of China Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. From 1983 to 1988, he was an interpreter for the Chinese leadership, including Deng Xiaoping. The author of the best-selling book “The China Wave: The Rise of a Civilizational State,” he was invited in 2021 by the Chinese Communist Party Politburo to conduct a “collective study session” on his ideas.