Chat Lounge

At the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Chinese gold medalist Gu Ailing has been creating a lot of heat in the press in both China and America. The story of Gu, together with a good number of athletes who are representing countries which are not where they are originally from, is creating debate in the international media over the issue of sports and nationality.

Does the nationality of the athletes matter and why? Who should be deciding on who is eligible to represent a country? Host Liu Kun talks to Susan Brownell, anthropologist and expert on Chinese sports at the University of Missouri-St Louis; Andy Mok, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization; and Dong Jun, veteran journalist and Founder of Ever-sports.

U.S. federal prosecutors recently dropped the case against MIT nanotechnology professor Chen Gang. This once again brought into spotlight the China Initiative, established by the U.S. Department of Justice for the alleged purpose of "identifying and prosecuting those engaged in trade secret theft, hacking, and economic espionage."

Is the China Initiative an effort of racial profiling against Asian American scholars as widely criticized? Is the end of the Initiative looming amid growing public pressure? Host Liu Kun talks to Dr. Sara Hsu, Clinical Associate Professor, University of Tennessee at Knoxville; Dr. Liu Yawei, director of the China Program at the Carter Center; and David Moser, Associate Professor, Beijing Capital Normal University.

Trust among Chinese citizens in their government hit a record high in a decade. According to the latest Trust Barometer released by the American public relations firm Edelman, China tops the Barometer with its average trust in institutions, including government, NGOs, business, and media, standing at 83, up 11 points from that of last year. In sharp contrast, trust in those institutions fell most sharply in Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United States since 2021. What has led to the situation?

For this and other questions on the issue, join host Tu Yun, Professor Zhu Feng, dean and professor of international studies, Nanjing University, Ian Goodrum, Senior editor and columnist of China Daily, and writer and columnist Einar Tangen, to take a close look.

Christine Lee, a British-Chinese lawyer, who set up the British Chinese Project aimed at promoting engagement, understanding and cooperation between the Chinese community and wider UK society, has been accused of being a spy for Beijing by Britain’s spy agent MI5. But just a couple of years ago in 2019, she was given a “Point of Light” award by then prime minister Theresa May in recognition of her work in promoting Sino-British relations and her charity work for the local community. What has led to the dramatic change? As anti-Chinese sentiment is on the rise in Western countries, how may it back fire at the entire society?

Join host Tu Yun, former Director of Economic and Business Policy for the Mayor of London John Ross, writer and columnist Einar Tangen, and Professor Wan Xiaohong, Associate Dean of the School of Politics and Public Administration, South China Normal University, for insights into the dilemma of the Chinese diaspora in Western societies today.

A new wave of COVID has hit China. How will it affect the Chinese economy and the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics? Given the high contagiousness of Omicron, does it mean an outbreak within the loop is unavoidable once a case is detected?

Join host Tu Yun and Dr. Wu Zhiwei, Director of the Center for Public Health Research, Nanjing University; Mark Dreyer, host of the China Sports Insider Podcast and author of the newly released book Sporting Superpower, An Insider’s View on China’s Quest to Be the Best; writer and columnist Einar Tangen; and sports journalist Yang Guang who will be covering the Winter Olympics in about three weeks for more on this topic.

Born to be a star! The newly launched Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership overtakes many other economic blocs such as the USMCA and the EU to become the world’s largest. Some say the real significance of the RCEP is about the free trade arrangements between China and Japan, and between Japan and South Korea, the three major Asian economies that have been seeking to establish a free trade area but haven’t been able to do so for years. How valid is the assessment? How likely are we going to see the creation of the Next China in the region over the next two decades? What could be the biggest uncertainty that may hinder the sound operation of the partnership in the future?

Join host Tu Yun, writer and columnist Einar Tangen, and John Gong, professor of economics at China’s University of International Business and Economics, for a chat on the issue.

As the world moves into the new year of 2022, will the human race be able to take off the masks we’ve been wearing for the past two years? Will U.S.-China relations get better? Will Russia and NATO go to war over Ukraine? These three questions are what we have in mind. Our host Liu Kun is joined by Xu Qinduo, senior fellow with Pangoal Institution, and Dr Gal Luft, co-director of Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.

A teacher at Shanghai Aurora College has been fired for telling her students that the casualty numbers in the notorious Nanjing Massacre are not supported by real data. She called reports on the atrocity “a folk rumor.” Some people argue the comments are not that big a deal as it’s a matter of academic freedom of speech. Is that so?

The student who put the video of the teacher’s lecture online is facing bullying. Some people call him a traitor. Does he deserve it? Could the student have handled the situation better?

And there are rising attempts especially in Japan to rewrite history or deny the occurrence of the Nanjing Massacre and other war crimes committed by the Japanese military in the rest of Asia during WWII. What’s prompted such a phenomenon?

In this episode of Chat Lounge, join host Tu Yun, writer and columnist Einar Tangen, and Associate Professor David Moser from Beijing Capital Normal University for a close look at the issue.

In China’s far west, Xinjiang remains mysterious to many, even inside the country. In this episode of Chat Lounge hosted by Tu Yun, join writer and columnist Einar Tangen and filmmaker Andy Boreham, one of the foreign influencers accused by the New York Times of being used by Beijing as a “propaganda tool,” in discovering the real Xinjiang and why they think the Western narrative on the Chinese region is fundamentally wrong.

Twenty Years into its WTO membership, China is now the world's largest trading nation in goods and the 2nd largest in services. How has China been engaging with existing WTO rules and the formulation of new ones? What should we make of some western officials' accusation of China gaming the multilateral trading system? What role has China played in the reform of WTO, an organization which is undergoing a difficult moment but whose function is ever more important?

 

Our host Liu Kun talks to Zhang Yuejiao, professor of law and former judge of WTO's Appellate Body. She is the first Chinese national to have been appointed to that position, which she served for 8 years.