China and the World Program's Podcast

Abstract--In July 1930, the Kuomintang party school, the Central Political Institute (zhongyang zhengzhi xuexiao), established a new Diplomacy Department and welcomed its first cohort of ten students into a program designed to train young party members for careers in the Nationalist government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Over the course of the next decade, more than 130 young men and women were admitted to this highly selective department where they studied a curriculum that had been specifically designed to produce a new generation of Chinese foreign policy experts, combining rigorous language training with novel theories of international politics. This talk argues that the 130 graduates from this program were at the heart of a movement to transform Chinese foreign policymaking that began in the 1930s but continued throughout World War II and the Cold War, profoundly shaping how both Beijing and Taipei pursue their global agendas to the present day. Nearly half of the Diplomacy Department alumni stayed in Mainland China after 1949, working for the new communist state’s foreign policy apparatus, and this network of Kuomintang-trained diplomats exercised considerable influence on both sides of the Taiwan Strait throughout the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s. In this presentation, Anatol Klass will introduce this cohort: their education, their careers, and the manner in which they helped bring about a strategic reorientation and a structural transformation in Chinese diplomacy during the middle decades of the twentieth century.

How does China influence international order and when are China’s efforts successful? China develops a new strategy, international discourse power, focused on the use of narratives. Using international discourse power, China seeks to gain global influence by crafting compelling messages. Through interviews with China’s foreign policy experts, I describe the concept of international discourse power and explain how the Chinese Communist Party uses it to mobilize support and gain followers for China’s global leadership. Central to the strategy are narratives about international order. To observe the impact of China’s strategy, I focus on the development of order in cyberspace, an inchoate space where global rules are under development. Central to China’s discourse power in cyberspace is the message of cyber sovereignty. By employing a mixed methods approach to analyze the development of order in cyberspace, I find support for the argument that discourse is a source of power that allows China to mobilize support for changes in the status quo. This research flips the analytical lens from describing whether China will be motivated to shape international order to tracing the impact China has in a space where it is highly motivated to impact global governance. The focus on China’s use of rhetoric demonstrates the power of narratives in building and shaping international order.

Abstract: In recent years, China has deepened its involvement in the Latin America and Caribbean region, moving beyond its traditional commercial relationship to foster political, cultural, and even military ties, replacing in a stepwise process the region’s conventional North American and European partners. In parallel, Latin America and the Caribbean's trade relationship with China has been increasingly focused on exporting low-value-added primary products and importing high-tech goods, which has accelerated the process of deindustrialization in the area. This study outlines the historical regional and international context that frames both the Chinese movements into Latin America and the Caribbean and the investments, projects, and partnerships the regions have established to date. Mexico’s relationship with the PRC and what it means for the region and the US market is also explored. Through an in-depth analysis of Chinese activity in the area, this study will highlight the opportunities and risks this calculated and strategic rapprochement presents.

Bio:

Jackson Schneider has more than 30 years of high-level experience at transnational companies, working closely with domestic and international government bodies through his leadership roles in strategic industry associations and boards of public institutions. In his decade-long role as President and CEO of one of the most critical emerging-nation defense companies, Jackson interacted with government officials in several countries through trade negotiations or as a Brazilian representative in international forums such as CEBRICS and the B20.  He was visiting senior fellow(non-resident) at King's College, Dept of War Studies, London, from August 2020 to August 2022.

While most attention has focused on Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, the big story of the past decade has been the reorientation of Russia from Europe to Asia. Centered on China but not limited to it, this abrupt shift made possible Putin’s anti-West behavior. In this book, Rozman, Christofferson, and several contributors present a comprehensive analysis of the turn “east.” Having penetrated the web of censorship in Russia (and China also) to grasp what is said about the actual state of Sino-Russian relations, the authors explain the duality of Russia’s ties to China: together against the US-led order but at odds over reconfiguring Asian regionalism. 

The overall message combines two contrasting conclusions: Russia has increasingly joined with China in challenging the existing order in Asia, working to forge what Moscow calls a Greater Eurasian Partnership; and Russia and China have played a cat-and-mouse game of rival strategies that, on all fronts, have been difficult to reconcile. Without grasping this story, it would be difficult to understand why Putin has invaded Ukraine and is threatening the West.

What makes this book exceptional?  First, it thoroughly covers four stages in Russian policy and seven directions ranging from Central Asia to the Sino-Russian border to the Korean Peninsula, Japan, India, Southeast Asia, and Mongolia. Second, this is a cohesive, cumulative account of what transpired, not a disparate, edited collection. Third, this book draws heavily on a record of more than 1000 Russian articles over a decade as well as familiarity with the publications from China, Japan, South Korea, and Mongolia. It tells a unique story of how both Sino-Russian relations and Russian thinking toward Asia have evolved, year-by-year through 2022.

This book tells of Russian plans to forge a new architecture across Asia, from North Korea to India, in constant tension with China’s Sinocentric agenda.

Abstract: Many studies of China's relations with and influence on Southeast Asia tend to focus on how Beijing has used its power asymmetry to achieve regional influence. Yet, scholars and pundits often fail to appreciate the complexity of the contemporary Chinese state and society, and just how fragmented, decentralized, and internationalized China is today.  This talk points out that a focus on the Chinese state alone is not sufficient for a comprehensive understanding of China's influence in Southeast Asia. Instead, we must look beyond the Chinese state, to non-state actors from China, such as private businesses and Chinese migrants. These actors affect people's perception of China in a variety of ways, and they often have wide-ranging as well as long-lasting effects on bilateral relations. Looking beyond the Chinese state's intentional influence reveals many situations that result in unanticipated changes in Southeast Asia. This talk proposes that to understand this increasingly globalized China, we need more conceptual flexibility regarding which Chinese actors are important to China's relations, and how they wield this influence, whether intentional or not.

Bio: Dr. Enze Han is Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, The University of Hong Kong. His recent publications include The Ripple Effect: China’s Complex Presence in Southeast Asia (Oxford University Press, 2024), Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia (Oxford University Press, 2019), Contestation and Adaptation: The Politics of National Identity in China (Oxford University Press, 2013), and various articles appearing in The Journal of Politics, International Affairs, World Development, The China Quarterly, Security Studies, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies among many others. During 2015-2016, he was a Friends Founders' Circle Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, United States. His research has been supported by the Leverhulme Research Fellowship and British Council/Newton Fund. He has been awarded the Distinguished Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia by the Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Initiative on Southeast Asia in 2021. Dr. Han received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the George Washington University, and he was also a postdoctoral research fellow in the China and the World Program at Princeton University.

After one of the most dramatic presidential campaigns in Taiwan’s history, January 13, 2024 saw the election of Taiwan's William Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive. Stepping into this leadership position, Lai, who currently serves as vice president, will have to address a number of foreign policy challenges. They include: a deteriorating relationship with the People’s Republic of China; a United States interested in preventing a cross-Strait conflict; and countries around the globe seeking the expansion of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. For the next four years, Taipei will likely continue to maintain the status quo and policies of current President Tsai Ing-wen. At home, Taiwan will also grapple with a number of urgent issues. Wages have stagnated, and youth unemployment has led to disillusionment. Other issues, such as economic diversification and the rising costs of living and housing, are areas that the new president will need to address. How will the new president confront these concerns – domestically and abroad? Are there prospects for deeper cross-Strait cooperation between Taipei and Beijing? How might the election impact the Indo-Pacific region and beyond? Join The China and the World Program in collaboration with the Weatherhead East Asian Institute for this crucial discussion on the future of Taiwan and its foreign relations in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election by a cohort of SIPA students who were in-country in the lead up to the election and several C&WP fellows.

Why do countries pursue security partnerships with the People's Republic of China?  In particular, why do we observe countries seeking security relationships with both the United States and the PRC?  Conventional wisdom argues that countries "don't want to choose" because they look to China for economics and the U.S. for security, but an increasing number of countries are choosing to pursue security partnerships with both countries simultaneously. What explains these cases?  We argue that the nature of the security goods provided by the US are different from those provided by the PRC: the U.S. tends to offer regional security from external threats, while China tends to offer assistance in bolstering regime security against internal instability.  Thus it is not just that countries "don't want to choose" between economics and security; they also do not want to choose between the security benefits provided by the US and the PRC, as benefits provided by the two countries are complementary rather than substitutive.  We demonstrate our argument through a quantitative comparison of security assistance and case studies of key countries that pursue defined security arrangements with both the US and China, spanning Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.  Our analysis of “third parties” enmeshed in great power competition offers comparative leverage on the nature of China’s overseas projection of its military and other forms of national power, illustrates a vital new characteristic of Chinese foreign policy, and call for a reconsideration of policies predicated on symmetrical security competition between the U.S. and China.

Research to date has shown that the international human rights regime is politicized. Despite claiming to uphold the normative standard, states tend to review their allies’ human rights records less harshly than those of their adversaries. I argue that the politicized human rights regime is a product of the major powers exploiting the review system. How can a major power like China improve its standing in the international human rights regime without improving its domestic compliance record? I demonstrate that China, a major power with little intention to comply with liberal-based norms, can use economic rewards to influence reviews of its human rights record, thus bypassing the human rights norms underlying the international monitoring system. By leveraging the time lags between sessions of the UN Universal Periodic Review, a recurring human rights monitoring institution, I show that China uses economic rewards to stimulate lenient reviews of its own record. After receiving development projects and debt relief, countries tend to be more lenient in their reviews of China’s human rights record. In contrast with the conventional wisdom that the authoritarian power’s hands are tied in a liberal norm-based regime, the Global South is more receptive to China’s voices in the human rights regime than expected.

Lucie Lu (陆璐) studies international relations with a regional focus on China. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2023. Her research delves into China’s global influences in three international regimes: media, human rights and foreign aid. Her ongoing research endeavors explore each of these topics individually as well as their intersections. Her dissertation studies how power shifts have happened in unexpected areas where China possesses an obvious disadvantage because of its authoritarian regime characteristic and how it manages to earn status in social media, human rights and foreign aid regimes. Her research has received support from the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research as a Schroeder Summer Graduate Fellow, the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Illinois, EITM Summer Institute (2022), and the APSA Political Communication Section.

Technology transfer policies have long been an important and controversial element in China's foreign economic policy toolkit. What explains Chinese authorities' use of these measures, and why do they refrain from issuing them in some strategic high-technology sectors? I examine China's efforts to accelerate its economic rise through technology extractors, defined as policies that condition foreign market access on technology transfers to domestic firms. I argue weak enforcement capacity and China’s position in global value chains (GVCs) constrain its bargaining power over foreign investors, limiting the use of technology extractors even in highly strategic sectors such as semiconductors. Case studies and analysis of a new industry-level dataset from 1995-2015 suggest that strategic industries account for most of the increase in China's use of tech extractors after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. However, when China occupies an intermediate position in global production networks, its reliance on foreign firms to drive exports and associated employment prevents it from issuing these measures. My findings illuminate how GVCs reshape the politics of bargaining over technology transfer between states and foreign investors, and how position in production networks influences the strategic choices behind China’s economic rise.

Scaling the Commanding Heights: The Logic of Technology Transfer Policy in Rising China

John David Minnich is a CWP fellow for the 2023-2024 academic year. He is a PhD candidate in Political Science at MIT, where his dissertation examines how China's position in global production networks shapes its pursuit of foreign technology transfers in strategic industries. Starting in Fall 2024, John will be an Assistant Professor of International Political Economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to MIT, John worked in political risk analysis and lived and studied in China for over two years.

The return of strongmen politics exemplified by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin has led many to question whether societal actors can influence the foreign policy of authoritarian regimes. Nevertheless, despite tightening authoritarian rule, there are vibrant societal debates about foreign policy in China. Scholars have identified societal actors capable of influencing China’s foreign policy. Some have even uncovered channels through which these actors can exert influence. However, the conditions under which Chinese societal actors shape China’s foreign policy are yet to be fully uncovered. The fact that there is no perfect transmission belt between official and societal constructions of China’s national interest makes considering the intervening effect of domestic structures necessary. Focusing on foreign policy experts working at Chinese think tanks and Chinese International Relations scholars, Sabine Mokry demonstrates how societal actors’ proximity to the state and the state’s openness to societal input facilitate and constrain societal actors’ influence on the construction of China’s national interest. Through close observation of changes in political institutions and state-society relations under Xi Jinping, she details how the state’s openness to societal input changed over time and in what ways it differed for think tanks and scholars. The talk is based on Sabine Mokry’s current book project, whose insights will allow us to reexamine Chinese societal actors’ influence on China’s foreign policy.