What will Donald Trump’s re-election mean for relations between China and the US? Is Beijing alarmed by his threats of massive new trade tariffs, and the unpredictability that he likes to boast about? Or will it see his relative lack of interest in global affairs — and his love of a deal — as a chance to increase its leverage and put more pressure on Taiwan, while boosting its influence in the South China Sea? Presenter Duncan Hewitt discusses these issues with Jim McGregor, Chairman for Greater China at APCO Worldwide, Professor Steve Tsang, Director of the SOAS China Institute, and BBC Asia correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.
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(Music credit: Sappheiros / CC BY 3.0)

Ep181: The impact of Donald Trump’s re-election on US relations with China and East Asia

After an unprecedented year of elections, new leaders around the globe who have promised change will be expected to deliver in 2025. The world will also be coming to terms with the outcome of America’s elections in November and the implications for global security, trade, and climate policy. New alliances are forming, and old ones are fraying in an increasingly tense and dangerous world. But the adoption of green tech continues to outpace the most optimistic forecasts, even as concerns grow over artificial intelligence and its voracious appetite for chips, energy, water, and data. Tom Standage, Deputy Editor of The Economist and editor of The World Ahead 2025, will consider these and other trends and their implications for geopolitics, business, and culture in the coming year.

THE WORLD AHEAD 2025: TOP 10 TRENDS TO WATCH

On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong (1893-1976) stood on the rostrum of Tian’anmen (The Gate of Heavenly Peace) and announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in his strong Hunanese accent. This momentous announcement marked the end of China’s chaotic era of foreign domination since the mid-18th century and of frequent governmental upheavals after 1911. 

Written by Cruz Guan. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Video production by Laura Seeger and Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available at https://origins.osu.edu/read/establishment-peoples-republic-china.

Learn More:

Chen, Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001

Dikötter, Frank. Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962. New York: Walker and Company, 2010.

Gao, Hua. Translated by Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian. How the Red Sun Rose: The Origins and Development of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, 1930–1945. The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2018.

Li, Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao. New York: Random House, 1994.

Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991

Vogel, Ezra F. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.

Wang, Zheng. Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations. Columbia University Press, 2012.  

This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.

The Founding of the People's Republic of China

Abhinandan Kaul on India's Youth and Foreign Policy | Excerpts from Sansad TV's Podcast

In this episode, Rishi Gulati is in conversation with Dr Patryk Labuda on the topic of Double Standards in International Law. Patryk Labuda  is presently Assistant professor of international law and international relations at the Central European University. Previously, he has been an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam, and has held positions at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, New York University School of Law, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, University of Zurich, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and Free University of Berlin. The discussion focuses on what the phrase double standards in international law actually means, how double standards are manifested in contemporary practice, how double standards impact the credibility of international law, and what can be done about it.

Double Standards in International Law: Dr Rishi Gulati and and guest Dr. Patryk Labuda

Donald Trump is promising to challenge China on everything from its exports to its global influence over the next four years, but what could this mean in practice? Professor Miles Yu of the Hudson Institute, principal advisor on China policy to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the first Trump administration, and Professor Evan Medeiros of Georgetown University, former senior director for Asia at the White House National Security Council under President Obama share their views on China in Context.

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The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the speakers and are not necessarily those of the SOAS China Institute.

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Music credit: Sappheiros / CC BY 3.0

Ep183: Trump and China — Deal or No Deal?

Donald Trump's new tariffs on Chinese exports may only boost the trend for Chinese companies to seek new markets and manufacturing bases overseas — including in Africa, where China is now the biggest trading partner and source of loans. On this episode, we discuss 'Made in Ethiopia', a new film looking at the human impact of Chinese involvement in Africa's industrialisation, with its directors Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan — and debate China's wider relationship with the continent with Professor Carlos Oya, head of the Department of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London.
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The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the speakers and are not necessarily those of the SOAS China Institute.

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Music credit: Sappheiros / CC BY 3.0

Ep184: China and Africa — An Intimate Portrait

Greg Marchildon speaks with Asa McKercher about his book, Building a Special Relationship: Canada-US Relations in the Eisenhower Era, 1953–61.
Building a Special Relationship explores a lesser-known period in U.S.-Canada relations during the 1950s, when officials from both countries developed a strong culture of bilateral cooperation amid the escalating tensions of the Cold War.

Asa McKercher is an associate professor at St. Francis Xavier University, a senior fellow at the Bill Graham Centre, and a fellow at Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy. He is editor-in-chief of International Journal and the author of several books, including Canada and the World since 1867 and Camelot and Canada: Canadian-American Relations in the Kennedy Era.

Michael D. Stevenson is a history professor at Lakehead University. He authored Canada’s Greatest Wartime Muddle: National Selective Service and the Mobilization of Human Resources during WWII and edited the 1957–58 volumes of Documents on Canadian External Relations.

Image Credit: UBC Press

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Building a Special Relationship: Canada-US Relations in the Eisenhower Era, 1953–61

Season 3—The current state of global relations: An introduction by Alan Alexandroff

US-China relations during the Biden administration have been marked by competition and rivalry. Many of the aspects of US-China relations of the first Trump presidency were retained by the Biden administration. We have now returned to President Trump. What are we likely to see now in US foreign policy under a second Trump presidency; what will be US-China relations going forward? To explore all this I invited back into the Virtual Studio my good colleague Yves Tiberghien.

Yves currently is a Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, and Director of the Center for Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Yves recently completed a study leave and was a visiting scholar at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (2023-2024). Yves specializes in comparative political economy and international political economy with an empirical focus on China, Japan, and Korea. His latest book is The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox, August 2021.

Come join Yves in the Virtual Studio to examine these issues.

Shaking the Global Order S3, Ep 1: Tiberghien

US-China relations during the Biden administration was marked by growing competition and rivalry. Many of the aspects of US-China relations of the first Trump presidency were retained by the Biden administration. We have now returned to a second Trump administration. What are we likely to now see in US foreign policy under a second Trump presidency; what will US-China relations likely be going forward? What will be the state of relations of each with players in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific?

To examine these critical matters, it was with great pleasure that I invited my colleague Rush Doshi into the Virtual Studio for our new Season 3 of podcasts of ‘Shaking the Global Order’. Today’s podcast with Rush explores these critical global power issues.

Rush Doshi is the C.V. Starr senior fellow for Asia studies and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is also an assistant professor in the Security Studies Program in Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. 

Rush was deputy senior director for China and Taiwan on the National Security Council (NSC) from 2021 to 2024, where he helped manage the NSC's first China directorate. He is the author of The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).

So, let’s join Rush in the Virtual Studio to examine all these issues.

Shaking the Global Order S3, Ep 2: Doshi

In this week's episode, in light of 48 hours of the news cycle, Juliette McIntyre convenes the Called to the Bar team - Tamsin Phillipa Paige, Ntina Tzouvala, Imogen Saunders and Douglas Guilfoyle - to ask: does international law have a future? And if so, what does it look like without the US as the guarantor of international order?

Grab a drink and settle in. It's going to be a bumpy global order transition.

Recommendations include:

Tamsin Paige, "Petulant and Contrary: Approaches by the Permanent Five Members of the UN Security Council to the Concept of 'threat to the peace' under Article 39 of the UN Charter" (Chapter 1), https://brill.com/display/title/54194?language=en

Frank Moorhouse, "Dark Palace" (on the end of the League of Nations) 
https://www.penguin.com.au/books/dark-palace-9780143790914

What Douglas was wearing: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:6224ogbnhmjhtpjoteynx4hk/post/3ljiyhoop342r

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

32 Group Therapy: So Long and Thanks for all the International Law

There is an international “gold standard” for investigating suspicious deaths — it’s called the Minnesota Protocol.

Adopted by the United Nations in 1989 and 1991, the Minnesota Protocol outlines best practice for death investigations, particularly when government agents may have done the killing or neglected the duty to investigate.

Forensic investigators have used the Minnesota Protocol to exhume mass graves in Peru (pictured), identify the remains of anti-apartheid activists who disappeared in South Africa, and convict General Efraín Ríos Montt of genocide in Guatemala. 

Today the protocol is being translated into Ukrainian for use by forensic specialists, at the urging of the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions. The Special Rapporteur is promoting global implementation of the protocol to address human rights violations.

Minnesota lawyers and medical examiners volunteered to draft the protocol in partnership with international experts in the 1980s. The pro bono lawyers’ committee went on to become The Advocates for Human Rights, which relies on more than 800 volunteers. 

A new Human Rights Archive at the University of Minnesota highlights the state’s contributions to the human rights movement and preserves early drafts of the Minnesota Protocol.

KFAI's Michelle Bruch shares the surprising story of the international protocol that carries Minnesota’s name. 

Special thanks to Morris Tidball-Binz, Steve Dorsey, Linnea Anderson, Kris Kiesling, Erik Moore, the United Nations Audiovisual Library and Carrie Booth Walling.

Support for MinneCulture is provided by the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund. 

Sources:

Human Rights Council meeting June 26, 2024: Audio courtesy of the United Nations.

Morris Tiball-Binz, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: May 12, 2025 email and April 25, 2024 United Nations report.

Newsweek On Air July 28 1985, co-anchors David Alpern & Warren Levinson.

Newsweek On Air Aug. 18 1985, co-anchors David Alpern & Warren Levinson, interviewing Dumisani Kumalo.

Newsweek On Air Aug. 28, 1983, anchored by David Alpern and Tom Martin.

The Minnesota Protocol on the investigation of potentially unlawful death (2016). “Minnesota Protocol” web page, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.

“Investigating Potentially Unlawful Death under International Law: The 2016 Minnesota Protocol,” published in 2019 by authors Christof Heyns, Stuart Casey-Maslen, Toby Fisher, Sarah Knuckey and Thomas Probert.

The Advocates for Human Rights website: “Peru” and “Advocates Archive: Minnesota Protocol (1991)” dated February 27, 2023.

“Apartheid,” from The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

South Africa National Prosecuting Authority progress report on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission prosecutions, June 1, 2022.

University of Minnesota Civios podcast featuring Barbara Frey, Jan. 25, 2017.

Hatun Willakuy, Abbreviated Version of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Peru.

White House presidential action on Feb 4, 2025: “Withdrawing the United States from and ending funding to certain United Nations organizations and reviewing United States support to all international organizations.”

“Sí Hubo Genocidio: Anthropologists and the Genocide Trial of Guatemala’s Ríos Montt” by Angela Stuesse, published in American Anthropologist.

Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Photos courtesy of The Advocates for Human Rights.

How Minnesota shaped international death investigations

In this episode, Rob speaks with Nicholas Burns, the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at Harvard Kennedy School about his time serving as U.S. Ambassador to China and on his perspectives about bilateral efforts to address climate change. 

Read a transcript of the podcast: https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/2025-06/nick-burns-podcast-transcript-june-2025.pdf.

Photo credit: Grace DuVal/Harvard University

Nicholas Burns on his time as U.S. Ambassador to China and on efforts to address climate change.

In a world increasingly defined by protracted crises and mass displacement, the urgent need to protect the safety, dignity and rights of vulnerable populations has never been more pressing. This year’s Red Cross Oration will tackle the challenges faced by individuals displaced by violence, the protection of human dignity under extreme circumstances, and the evolving role of global institutions in ensuring that these crises are met with meaningful solutions.

Hear from two globally recognised experts who are at the forefront of the fight to protect vulnerable populations in conflict. With experience in the courtroom, on the ground in crisis zones, and at the policy table, they will explore the complex challenges of safeguarding human dignity and holding perpetrators accountable in times of war.

Safeguarding the Vulnerable in Conflict

Race ideology became part of earth dimension because genocide drives survivors against the laws of nature.

Race Warfare and Survival on Planet Earth 03-19-25

President Biden's National Security Advisor - Jake Sullivan - reflects on the administration's policies and on the future of America on the world stage.

About the series:
The Nakasaka Dialogues stimulate conversations about the state of public life and encourage progress toward our shared bonds.

This event series is made possible by a generous contribution from Humphrey School of Public Affairs alumnus Kiyoshi Nakasaka.
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This recording has been edited for brevity and clarity, including a 2-minute disruption during the remarks. Inquiries about the event can be directed to cspg@umn.edu.

The Nakasaka Dialogues Presents: A Conversation with Jake Sullivan

Race is an effect as well as thought process created through indiscriminate killing of civilians by race nation-states and military weapons that are meant to make civilians suffer.

Die Todesfuge 03-19-2025

The University of East Anglia (UEA) Law School is a highly respected and innovative law school located in Norwich, England. Established in 1977, the Law School has a rich history of providing high-quality legal education to students from around the world.

https://www.uea.ac.uk/web/about/law-school/research/research-blog

A podcast of informal conversation about topical issues in international law, life in academia and whatever else is on our mind. Hosted by Douglas Guilfoyle and featuring Juliette McIntyre, Tamsin Paige, Imogen Saunders, Nitna Tzouvala. 

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

MinneCulture is KFAI’s award-winning audio storytelling program. We produce audio documentaries exploring Minnesota’s art, culture, and history — stories about musical sensations, small town heroes, cultural icons, local lore, and everything in between.

Environmental Insights: Conversations on policy and practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.  

PHOTO: by Gustavo Quepón on Unsplash

Join Professor Alan Alexandroff as he interviews fellow academics, policymakers, and former officials about global governance and the contemporary global order.

Immerse yourself in Canada’s history! Witness to Yesterday episodes take listeners on a journey to document a time in Canada’s past and explore the people behind it, its significance, and its relevance to today. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://bit.ly/support_WTY. To learn more about the Society and Canada’s history, subscribe to our newsletter at https://bit.ly/news_WTY.

Podcast hosted by the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Conversations feature elected officials, academic thinkers, and public leaders on topics that range from healthcare to housing, governance theory, national security, and leadership in public affairs. Dialogue Across Difference illustrates the Center’s purpose of bringing multiple perspectives to the fore, of providing space for conversation on key issues of the day, and a chance to listen and learn from our differences.

Smart conversations about today’s most interesting topics - a history podcast for everyone, produced by Origins from Ohio State's Department of History

Ideas, debate and discussion - for and from Tasmania. Our vibrant and informative public talks and forums are now available as podcasts.

China In Context is a fortnightly podcast by the SOAS China Institute (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) which offers expert analysis on the politics, economy, society, culture and history of China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. It features interviews with leading academics, researchers, journalists and other China-specialists from around the world.

New tracks tagged #international relations