China Digest #60

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Events

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

China Power

Spectre

The Kremlin Playbook- Understanding Russian Influence In Central And Eastern Europe

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

There’s a frenzy in Washington surrounding the 2016 election and Russia’s interference in it.  Plenty of the buzz is partisan in its tenor, and there is plenty of it to go around on both sides of the aisle.  This episode of The Kremlin Playbook rises above partisan politics and focuses on what options the US has to counter  Russia’s interference in our election.

Countering Russian Interference

Schieffer Series: The Kremlin Playbook 2: The Enablers

It builds on the first Kremlin Playbook, which described the patterns of Russian economic influence in five Central and Eastern European countries. This new report, with six new case studies, exposes how countries can either be targets or enablers of Russian malign economic influence by allowing their financial systems to shelter profits for Russian companies and facilitate tax avoidance or illicit financial activity in Europe. (Read more at https://csis.org/podcasts/curated-conversations/schieffer-series-kremlin-playbook-2-enablers)

“The Kremlin Playbook 2” report demonstrates that some countries facilitate or enable the type of Russian malign economic influence that was uncovered in the first Kremlin Playbook report. On this episode, Heather A. Conley (CSIS), Donatienne Ruy (CSIS), and Martin Vladimirov (Center for the Study of Democracy) take listeners behind the scene and discuss the creation of The Kremlin Playbook series. They present key takeaways and biggest surprises, the requirements of such a study, and the way forward for this research.

Special Episode:The Making of “The Kremlin Playbook 2”

Mathematical modeling can help guide tough decisions about how society should respond to COVID-19.

Science Friday

Navigating COVID-19 By The Numbers

Indiana’s Lake Michigan shoreline is one of the most biodiverse places in the country. But that biodiversity is now washing away.

Washing Away America’s Third Coast

A handful of COVID-19 patients under the age of fifty have experienced strokes, raising questions about the virus.

Strokes In COVID-19 Patients, Plus Frontline Trauma In Healthcare Workers

<img src="https://elroy.twit.tv/sites/default/files/styles/twit_album_art_2048x2048/public/images/shows/hands-on_wellness/album_art/audio/how_albumart_0.jpg?itok=gCrOyQoM" align="right" hspace="20" vspace="20" border="0" width="300" height="300" title="Hands-On Wellness (Audio)" alt="Hands-On Wellness (Audio)"/>Home Workout Tips. During shelter-in-place procedures, it's important to not let your exercise routine lapse. On Hands-On Wellness, Ant Pruitt shares tips to get you on a workout regiment at home as we try to flatten the COVID-19 curve. There are great apps and services available to help such as the Home Workout mobile app. 
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Hands-On Wellness 4: Tips For Working Out At Home

Speaker(s): Peter Watkins, Professor Linda Yueh | COVID-19 was a significant supply shock for the global economy, among other things. With nations protecting their borders and even limiting some trade, will this accelerate a move toward deglobalisation? How should countries position themselves in a world where the US and China are also de-coupling? What does it mean for UK foreign and economic policies? Peter Watkins is an Associate Fellow for Chatham House and a Visiting Senior Fellow with LSE IDEAS. Linda Yueh (@lindayueh) is Chair of the LSE Economic Diplomacy Commission and Visiting Professor at LSE IDEAS. Michael Cox is Director of LSE IDEAS and Emeritus Professor of International Relations at LSE. COVID-19 represents an enormous challenge for the social sciences to help governments and non-governmental organisations respond to the economic and societal consequences of the pandemic. Part of LSE's response to this challenge is a series of online public events that will take place over the Summer Term. LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is LSE's foreign policy think tank. We connect academic knowledge of diplomacy and strategy with the people who use it. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSECOVID19

COVID-19 and Deglobalisation [Audio]

This episode unpacks China’s push to develop a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Our guest, Dr. Kevin Desouza, explains Beijing's motives and compares China’s plans for creating its own national digital currency with those of other countries that have undertaken similar initiatives. Dr. Desouza explores how a national digital currency can be used to bolster China’s finance and technology sectors, as well as its economy as a whole. He also offers his views on what China’s timeline might be for rolling out its own CBDC, particularly in light of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Dr. Kevin Desouza is a professor of Business, Technology and Strategy in the School of Management at the Queensland University of Technology Business School. Dr. Desouza is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the China Institute for Urban Governance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He has held tenured faculty appointments at the University of Washington, Virginia Tech, and Arizona State University.

Unveiling China's Digital Currency Goals: A Conversation with Kevin Desouza

Speaker: Min Ye, Associate Professor of International Relations, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University.

Moderator: Michael Szonyi, Frank Wen-Hsiung Wu Memorial Professor of Chinese History; Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University

China’s Belt and Road Initiative, pronounced by Chinese leader Xi Jinping as the “project of the century”, now faces the most uncertain fate in China and abroad. In this new research, Min Ye evaluates policy discourses, interest groups, and nascent BRI networks in China and concludes that domestic drivers for the BRI have not been altered by the Covid-19. However, the external environment and demand for BRI are predicted to change, and we are likely to see important shifts in the BRI implementation in the future.

Min Ye is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Her research situates in the nexus between domestic and global politics and the intersection of economics and security, with a focus on China, India, and the regional relations. Her publications include The Belt, Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China 1998 — 2018 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Diasporas and Foreign Direct Investment in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and The Making of Northeast Asia (with Kent Calder, Stanford University Press, 2010). Min Ye has received grants and fellowship in the U.S and Asia, including a Smith Richardson Foundation grant (2016-2018), East Asia Peace, Prosperity, and Governance Fellowship (2013), Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program post-doctoral fellowship (2009-2010), and Millennium Education Scholarship in Japan (2006). In 2014-2016, the National Committee on the U.S-China Relations selects Min Ye as a Public Intellectual Program fellow. In 2020, Ye is selected as the Rosenberg Scholar of East Asian Studies at Suffolk University.

In 2009-2010, Min Ye was the China and the World post-doctoral fellow at the Fairbank Center. She has since been an active participant in programs at the Fairbank Center. In 2016-2018, she served in the Faculty Council of Harvard-Yenching Institute. She currently mentors visiting scholars at HYI. Min Ye is a National Committee on US-China Relations PIP fellow (PIP 4). Ye’s recently published a new book, “The Belt, Road and Beyond.”

This event was recorded on Zoom on Wednesday May 20, 2020.

The Belt-Road Initiative and COVID-19, with Min Ye

Last year, the European Union published a strategic outlook in which it reviewed China as a partner, competitor and a strategic rival, creating a lively debate about the nature of the EU-China relations. However, this outlook was designed for a pre-corona world. How has covid-19 reshaped the EU-China relations? What changes to the global order will the pandemic bring? Who will be the main actors in the international arena? In this week’s podcast Mark Leonard welcomed Lanxin Xiang, Professor in International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva and Director of the Centre of One And One Road Studies, who shares his insights on the changing global order, China’s attitude towards the EU and the Chinese “wolf warrior diplomacy”

This podcast was recorded on 20 May 2020.

Bookshelf:
· "John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman" by Robert Skidelsky 
· "The meaning of systemic rivalry: Europe and China beyond the pandemi"c by Andrew Small https://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/the_meaning_of_systemic_rivalry_europe_and_china_beyond_the_pandemic

· "The post-coronavirus world is already here" by Josep Borrell https://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/the_post_coronavirus_world_is_already_here

World in 30 Minutes

A triangle deal - How covid-19 is reshaping the global order and EU-China relations

For more info on the Coronavirus and its impact on U.S.-China relations, visit: ncuscr.org/coronavirus

As the COVID-19 pandemic presents unprecedented challenges to every level of the global economy, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations is bringing together leading American and Chinese experts on economics and trade to share analysis and projections on the issues. We invite you to join us for a series of virtual programs, Coronavirus Crisis: What it means for U.S.-China Economic & Trade Relations, over the next month.

The second program in the series, Coronavirus Crisis: Prospects for U.S.-China Economic and Trade Relations, was held on May 13, 2020.

 - Tu Xinquan, Dean, China Institute for WTO Studies, University of International Business and Economics
 - Xu Gao, Chief Economist, Bank of China International Co. Ltd
 - Barry Naughton, So Kwanlok Chair of Chinese International Affairs, University of California, San Diego
 - Daniel Rosen, Founder and China Practice Leader, Rhodium Group

For the third event in the series: ncuscr.org/events