Hosted by Bonnie S. Glaser, the ChinaPower Podcast dissects critical issues underpinning China’s emergence as a global power.

China Power

CHINA DIGEST 28/5

Geopolitics and Analysis

CSIS

Ties between the US and Chinese militaries are deepening at the same time that strategic competition between them is increasing, especially in the Asia-Pacific. The US is hoping that efforts such as the establishment of the Strategic Security Dialogue in 2012 and the inclusion of China in Rim of the Pacific naval exercises will help avoid miscalculation that could escalate to a political or even military crisis. In this episode, we welcome Phillip C. Saunders as we discuss both the progress that’s been made and the persistent challenges in US-China military relations.

US-China Military Ties: A Conversation with Phillip C. Saunders

China’s Energy Security: A Conversation with Zha Daojiong

Space is a tool of national power, and China’s space programs, like those of the United States and other countries, have both political and strategic objectives. One focus of China’s space program is on human spaceflight, and Chinese leaders are aiming to achieve a lunar landing in the 2030’s. China is utilizing space for communications, science, and military purposes. China’s space program is a source of pride for the Chinese people and a component of Chinese soft power. In this episode, we welcome Joan Johnson-Freese as we discuss China’s ongoing efforts and objectives of its space program.

China’s Race to Space: A Conversation with Joan Johnson-Freese

China’s new Overseas Non-Governmental Organization Law took effect on January 1st and is aimed primarily at reducing the influence of foreign actors on domestic affairs. Beijing now requires foreign organizations to register with the Ministry of Public Security and have an official Chinese sponsor or host organization. These measures have prompted international concern that Beijing will use its new regulations to constrain or even expel organizations advocating for human rights, women’s issues, public health and environmental protection. In this episode, we welcome Dr. Sophie Richardson as we discuss the implications of the law for China’s development as a modern society and a country that aims to play a bigger role in global governance.

China’s New Foreign NGO Law: A Conversation with Sophie Richardson

Russia and China, despite a contentious history, have been increasing strategic cooperation in ways that affect U.S. interests. In a special crossover episode between the ChinaPower podcast and Russian Roulette, we sit down with Olga Oliker and Jeff Mankoff of the Russia Program at CSIS. In this episode, we discuss Beijing’s view of its place in the world and how Moscow fits into this vision, Moscow’s priorities in its relations with China and Asia more broadly, and how this all impacts Russia’s and China’s respective relationships with the United States.

Russia, China, and the Global Order: A Conversation with Olga Oliker and Jeff Mankoff

This episode discusses the impact of China’s authoritarian system on its emergence as a great power.  Our guest, Carl Minzner, joins us to discuss his book, End of an Era: How China’s Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise, where he argues that China’s stagnant government system is slowly erasing the positive changes of the reform era.

Carl Minzner is a professor at the Fordham University School of Law, where he specializes in Chinese law and governance. He previously served as Senior Counsel for the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Additionally, he was an International Affairs Fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations and a Yale-China Legal Education Fellow at the Xibei Institute of Politics.

The Erosion of China’s Reform Era: A Conversation with Carl Minzner

An audio version of this story: https://sc.mp/2sgvo1h
The European Union’s proposal to no longer recognise biofuel as a renewable energy source puts it on collision course with Malaysia and Indonesia, the two biggest players in the US$39 billion palm oil industry.
Story by: Jeffery Hutton
Read by: Bong Miquibas

Forget US-China, the Malaysia-Indonesia-EU trade war may be upon us

On June 5, 2018, Dr. Christopher D. Yung explores China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s version of the Marshall Plan, during a lecture "Who's Afraid of China's Belt and Road Initiative? Getting to the Heart of China's Controversial Marshall Plan" at The Institute of World Politics.

Who's Afraid of China's Belt and Road Initiative?

GPF Director Jacob Shapiro welcomes special guest Dario Fabbri, Senior Analyst at Limes, to talk about Italy's view of Europe. Along the way, they touch on Italy's relationship with the U.S., Germany's lack of strategy and France's double-edged demographic advantage. Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here:  https://goo.gl/zt6tzx

Italy's View of France and Germany

This week, the head of NATO wrote a column politely reminding everyone about the use of the military alliance. Can NATO continue to meet the needs of all its members? Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here:  https://goo.gl/zt6tzx

Is NATO Obsolete?

Kings Maritime Seminar Series 2017-2018. Helen Sellers presents on the topic of 'Australia and India at Sea: The Contemporary Security implications of Two Maritime Histories from ancient to modern times.'. The seminar took place on the 7th December 2017 in the Department of War Studies, Kings College London.

Maritime Seminars 2017-2018: Australia and India at Sea: Contemporary Security, Helen Sellers

Author John Lehman talked about his book "OCEANS VENTURED: Winning The Cold War at Sea" during a lecture on June 25, 2018, at The Institute of World Politics.

About the Book:

A thrilling story of the Cold War, told by a former navy secretary on the basis of recently declassified documents. When Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981, the United States and NATO were losing the Cold War. The USSR had superiority in conventional weapons and manpower in Europe, and had embarked on a construction program to gain naval preeminence. But Reagan already had a plan. Reagan pushed Congress to build the navy back to its 1945 strength of 600 major ships. He gathered a circle of experienced naval planners, including the author, to devise an aggressive strategy that would move our fleets within spitting distance of Soviet waters. New radars, sensors, and emissions technology would make ghosts of our submarines and surface fleets. We would operate aircraft carriers in Arctic waters, which no navy had attempted. The Soviets, surrounded by our forward naval strategy, bankrupted their economy trying to keep pace. It wasn’t long before the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR was disbanded.

About the Author:

John Lehman, a former U.S. Navy pilot, served as United States Secretary of the Navy from 1981 to 1987. From 2003 to 2004 he was a member of the 9/11 Commission. He lives in New York.

OCEANS VENTURED: Winning The Cold War at Sea

Globalists see themselves as the peacekeepers through their advocacy of the values of liberalism, free trade, democracy and internationalism. Yet the actions of the institutions over which they preside seem to bring the opposite. They generate division and conflict both within nations and also between them. So we have heightened polarisation within Brexit Britain, as well as within other leading European countries. Within the European Union, tensions have escalated both between north and south, and between west and east. And despite the claimed Macron-Trump bromance, trans-Atlantic conflicts are mounting too. Is all this an inevitable outcome of the globalist perspective that denies the effectiveness of national state policies? Is there a solution to the widely held ‘global trilemma’, suggested by the writer Dani Rodrik? This says that economic globalisation, democracy and national sovereignty are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and in full.

The Academy 2018: Globalism and neo-liberalism - Phil Mullan

A recording of a lecture by Rachel Hammersley at The Academy 2018, a residential weekend organised by the Academy of Ideas. Find out more here: http://www.academyofideas.org.uk/events/archive/the_academy_2018#.W26sCOhKi3B

Rachel Hammersley is senior lecturer, intellectual history, Newcastle University; author, The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth-Century France; editor, Revolutionary Moments: reading revolutionary texts

Introduction:

Popular sovereignty lies at the heart of our modern understanding of democracy government. But what does this concept mean and how did it emerge? In the large states of Northern Europe, for much of the medieval period and beyond, the term ‘sovereign’ was conventionally used to describe a monarch. Yet, from the sixteenth century onwards, the concept was being transformed. This lecture traces that transformation, taking in the influential distinction drawn by Jean Bodin between sovereignty and government and the practical and theoretical developments arising out of the English, American and French Revolutions.

TASCAM DR-07 

Academy 2018: The Transformation of the Concept of Popular Sovereignty in Early-Modern Europe

A recording of a lecture by Dr Jim Panton at The Academy 2018, a residential weekend organised by the Academy of Ideas. Find out more here: http://www.academyofideas.org.uk/events/archive/the_academy_2018#.W5ur3vlKiUl

Liberalism is generally, and many liberals are in particular, ambivalent about nationalism. On the one hand, early liberal and republican thinkers developed bold attempts to theorise sovereignty as the foundation of state legitimacy and unifying condition of the nation. On the other hand, liberal thinkers have struggled to justify the accidental character of national boundaries and the implications these have for inhabitants of different nations. Further, modern liberals disavow the chauvinism they believe to be inherent in nationalism, proposing instead a cosmopolitan ethics. This lecture considers the development of the liberal ideal of the state in the thought of Locke, Rousseau, and ultimately, Kant, and looks at the extent to which the Kantian model of sovereignty as the foundation of nation-statehood, is increasingly maligned.

The Academy 2018

Academy 2018: The ideal of the liberal nation state

In this episode, we discuss conflict resolution and development in the northeast Indian state of Nagaland. The long-running insurgency in Nagaland looks to be drawing to a close following conclusion of a framework for a peace agreement in 2015 between the government of India and the Naga rebels, but a final peace deal is still pending. For Nagaland's state government, the challenge for the future is solidifying good governance that will translate to development.

Joining the pod to provide an update on the peace process, state politics, and efforts to increase infrastructure and investment in Nagaland is Mr. Abu Metha. Mr. Metha is a journalist and political organizer who serves as the General Secretary of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party in Nagaland. He recently sat down with CSIS Wadhwani Chair Research Associate Aman Thakker to share his insights on the current status of Nagaland. 

Audio edited by Ribka Gemilangsari. Written by Jeffrey Bean and Aman Thakker.  Produced by Jeffrey Bean.