Unpacking the Present Crisis in US-China Relations – Ryan Hass
Release Date: 12/06/2019
China’s Response to COVID-19 – Yanzhong Huang
China Studies
Perhaps the historic event of our time, the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare every country’s particular health care vulnerabilities and regulatory deficiencies, more starkly than in any other circumstances. In this episode, discusses with , a preeminent expert on China and global health, the historical background to and deeper meaning of China’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recorded on February 26, 2021, the conversation underscores the deficiencies in governance structures and incentives that contributed to missteps whose effects continue to reverberate to this day. Yanzhong Huang...
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Reporting From a Rising China – Edward Wong
China Studies
Western media presence in China has been vastly reduced since February 2020, the consequence both of political tensions and the Covid-19 pandemic. As the Chinese government finally begins to dismantle its “zero-Covid” policy in December 2022, the prospect of Western journalists returning to on-the-ground reporting from China appears more promising than it has in years. In this episode, discusses with , who reported from China for The New York Times from 2008-2016 and served as Beijing bureau chief, the narrative-defining stories he covered in those years, which so much have shaped the...
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U.S. Human Rights Policy Towards China – Amy Gadsden
China Studies
While the Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang and Hong Kong lately have been the subject of particular scrutiny from U.S. policymakers, systematic attention to China’s human rights practices, more broadly, has been a consistent feature of U.S. policy towards China in recent decades, through successive Democratic and Republican administrations. In this episode, discusses with , a leading expert on human rights in China, the background to why human rights came to be such a major factor in U.S.-China relations, and how this portfolio of issues does (and should) relate to other policy...
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China's Overseas NGO Law – Mark Sidel
China Studies
In recent years, and especially under the administration of Xi Jinping, the Chinese government has “securitized” all manner of relationships between its citizens and outsiders. An important marker of this trend, which continues to generate intense concern, was the 2016 passage of the Overseas NGO Law, a new legal framework for managing the domestic Chinese operations of nonprofit and educational institutions based abroad.
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China's Rise and IR Theory – Yan Xuetong
China Studies
No foreign policy topic currently garners more attention in the United States than its relationship with China, especially in light of China’s rise over the past few decades as an economic, technological, military, and strategic power and rival. In this episode, Neysun Mahboubi discusses with Yan Xuetong, one of China’s leading experts on international relations, how China’s rise, and its ever more complex and fraught relationship with the United States, look from a domestic Chinese perspective.
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China’s Domestic Security Under Xi Jinping – Sheena Chestnut Greitens
China Studies
One of the hallmarks of Xi Jinping’s tenure as China’s leader, since 2012, has been the notable strengthening of the state’s coercive architecture, through which it endeavors to control Chinese society. In particular, Xi Jinping’s administration has substantially restructured the legal and institutional frameworks underpinning China’s domestic security, while also tightening central discipline over security personnel, and pioneering new technology-based methods for surveillance and social control
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Unpacking the Present Crisis in US-China Relations – Ryan Hass
China Studies
Whatever the likelihood or implications of a potential truce in the US-China trade war, it seems clear that the overall relationship between the two countries has lately entered into a new, more harder-edged phase, defined by competition and perhaps even conflict in multiple areas: economic, technological, ideological, strategic, and conceivably military as well.
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The Rule of Law in Hong Kong (Part Two) – Johannes Chan
China Studies
Dramatic protests in Hong Kong over the past four months, initially over a now-withdrawn draft law that would permit extraditions to mainland China, have brought to worldwide attention broader fears amongst Hong Kong residents that their city is losing its distinctive legal and political characteristics, that were supposedly to be preserved under Chinese rule, according to the principle of “One Country, Two Systems”. A critical juncture in Hong Kong’s fascinating history appears to have been reached
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The Rule of Law in Hong Kong (Part One) – Johannes Chan
China Studies
Dramatic protests in Hong Kong this month, over a draft law that would permit extraditions to mainland China, underscore broader fears amongst Hong Kong residents that their city is losing its distinctive legal and political characteristics, that were supposedly to be preserved under Chinese rule, according to the principle of “One Country, Two Systems”. A critical juncture in Hong Kong’s fascinating history appears to be fast approaching, with ramifications extending far beyond the city itself.
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How to Be a Sensitive China Watcher – Kaiser Kuo
China Studies
Today, the reality and consequences of China’s rise have come to dominate news headlines the world over. Along with China’s growing wealth and power have come new tensions, with the United States and other countries, that further require better understanding of China’s story, in all its different facets. Given the stakes, there may never have been a more important time for us to think about how we think about China, whether as professional “China watchers” or more casual observers.
info_outlineWhatever the likelihood or implications of a potential truce in the US-China trade war, it seems clear that the overall relationship between the two countries has lately entered into a new, more harder-edged phase, defined by competition and perhaps even conflict in multiple areas: economic, technological, ideological, strategic, and conceivably military as well. In the United States, heated debates over US-China relations look not just to the present or future, but reach back to past attitudes and choices as well, even questioning the basic wisdom of the past 40 years of engagement with China in the first place. In this episode, Neysun Mahboubi discusses with Brookings fellow, and former Obama White House official, Ryan Hass the present landscape in US-China relations, how it has been shaped by prior US and Chinese administrations, and what the current administrations’ respective approaches may deliver. The episode was recorded on May 2, 2019.
Ryan Hass is a fellow and the Michael H. Armacost Chair in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, where he holds joint appointments to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School. From 2013 to 2017, he served as Director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the National Security Council, under President Obama. Previously, Hass served as a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where he earned the State Department Director General’s Award for Impact and Originality in Reporting. He also has served at the U.S. Embassies in Seoul and in Ulaanbaatar, and domestically in the State Department’s Offices of Taiwan Coordination and Korean Affairs, respectively. He received multiple Superior Honor and Meritorious Honor commendations during his 15-year tenure in the Foreign Service. At Brookings, Hass focuses his research and writing on enhancing policy development on the pressing political, economic, and security challenges facing the United States in East Asia. You can follow him @ryanl_hass.
Sound engineering: Shani Aviram and Neysun Mahboubi
Music credit: "Salt" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com