China in the Americas

Following the 2018 arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou 孟晚舟 on extradition charges to the USA, the political relationship of Canada and China has entered a "Deep Freeze" (as stated by David Mulroney, former Canadian Ambassador to China). In retaliation Chinese authorities arrested two Canadians in China; one of them recently sentenced to 11 years in jail.  Earlier this year Canadian parliament declared that the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjing, China amounts to "genocide". What is the current landscape of Sino-Canadian relations and where can the two countries go from here?

This episode features Prof. Gordon Houlden: Director Emeritus China Institute, a Professor of Political Science, and an Adjunct Professor of the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta. Professor Houlden joined the Canadian Foreign Service in 1976, serving in Ottawa and abroad. Twenty-two of his years in the Canadian Foreign Service were spent working on Chinese economic, trade and political affairs for the Government of Canada, including five postings in China. His last assignment before joining the University of Alberta in 2008 was as Director General of the East Asian Bureau of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. 

Show Notes

• China in the Canadian Arctic 
• Meng WanZhou Extradition case 
• Canadian sentenced to 11 years in jail in China
• Chinese Ambassador to Canada interview

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more information on China in the Americas topics)

Outro Music: Northwest Passage by Stan Rogers

How should the embassies of small states be structured to optimize their economic return in relation to China? This episode features Dr. Chelston Brathwaite, Barbados's Ambassador to the People's Republic of China (2014-2017). Prior to that, Dr. Brathwaite served as the Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). 

Show Notes

• Dr. Brathwaite's recently published memoirs- Memories of China: My Eleventh Defining Moment

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more info on China in the Americas topics)

Outro Music: Hit It by The Mighty Gabby 

Earlier this year China published a white paper on its new approach to International Development Finance. Our guest, Stella Zhang, described this white paper as a "landmark document" in Chinese foreign policy. We discuss the implications of the document along with the nuances of how Chinese firms currently approach international contracting projects and financing. How will these firms operate differently going forward? How will Latin America and Caribbean countries capitalize on China's more explicit signaling of its willingness to assist  with economic growth and development?

Hong (Stella) Zhang is a PhD candidate at George Mason University. Her research interests include China’s role in international development, the internationalization of China’s development state, and the overseas expansion of China’s state-owned enterprises. She had worked for five years as an overseas correspondent with China’s Caixin Media in London and Washington D.C.

Follow Stella on Twitter @StellaHongZhang

Show Notes

• China’s Manifesto for Leadership in Global Development by Stella Hong Zhang
• The Aid-Contracting Nexus: The role of the international contracting industry in China's overseas development engagements by Stella Hong Zhang 
• Roundtable: Will the G7’s B3W Initiative change the game of global infrastructure development?
• 程诚：《“一带一路”中非发展合作新模式：“造血金融”如何改变非洲》

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more info on China in the Americas topics)

Outro Music: La Dueña del Swing by Los Hermanos Rosario

Scott B. MacDonald is a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also the chief economist at Smith’s Research & Gradings. Prior to that, he was the head of research at MC Asset Management LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation; chief economist for KWR International and an international economic adviser in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in Washington, D.C.

Show Notes

• The Return of the Cold War in the Caribbean by Scott 
• Is There a ‘New Normal’ for De-risking in the Caribbean? by Scott 

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more info on China-Caribbean topics)

Outro Music: Toast by Koffee

To truly understand Sino-Cuban relations you need to understand the context of Cuba's relations with Venezuela, the US, and the former USSR. Why did USSR become the Patron of Cuba for most of the Cold War? Why did Venezuela step in to support Cuba after the USSR collapse?  Just as the last cold war will Cuba be the nexus of the "New Cold War"? We discussed all of these questions.

Dr. Bradley J. Murg is Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Director of Research, and Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of International Relations and Political Science here at Paragon International University. Dr. Murg also has been recognized as Distinguished Fellow and Senior Advisor at the Cambodia Institute for Cooperation and Peace and Senior Research Advisor at Future Forum.  Dr. Murg’s research languages include English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and German.

Show Notes

• A Conversation between Che Guevara, Mao Zedong, and Zhou Enlai (1960)
• Venezuela and Cuba: The Ties that Bind
• There Will Not Be a New Cold War by Thomas Christensen
• Sino-Cuban Relations: No "New Cold War" in Havana by Bradley Murg & Rasheed Griffith
• On the Havana Syndrome
•  Willy Wo-Lap Lam Commentary 
• Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split 

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more info on China-Caribbean topics)

Intro/Outro Music: Chan Chan by Buena Vista Social Club

Kanyi Lui is a Taiwanese-Australian international finance lawyer based in Beijing. He is a Partner at Pinsent Masons with almost two decades of experience advising major financial institutions and borrowers on the development and financing of energy, natural resource, and infrastructure projects in emerging markets.   

He has particular expertise on projects falling within the ambit of China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI).  Kanyi is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, the Malaysian Institute of Arbitrators, Prime Disputes and Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand, and has rights of audience before the AIFC Court. 

Show notes:

• Chinese financing: banking with Chinese lenders by Kanyi Lui
• How China Lends by AidData
• The Chinese 'Debt Trap' Is a Myth by Deborah Brautigam and Meg Rithmire

Subscribe to China in the Caribbean Newsletter on Substack

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more info on China-Caribbean topics)

Intro Music:
Africa Thing by Vin Gordon

Outro Music:
没钥匙的锁 by 刘聡 Key.L

Retired Lieutenant General Charles Hooper is the Former  Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (2017-2020). LTG Hooper was commissioned in 1979 as an infantryman. Since then his political-military assignments include: Assistant Army Attaché to China; the Deputy Division Chief, War Plans Division; Senior Country Director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense; and U.S. Defense Attaché to the People's Republic of China among other prominent assignments.  LTG Hooper joined The Cohen Group as a Senior Counselor in October 2020 following a distinguished 41-year military career. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.

LTG Hooper is fluent in Mandarin and has had a truly fascinating career in the US-China military and policy relations. In the first part of the podcast we discuss the early days of his experiences in China from the 1980s, then we discuss some finer aspects of US foreign weapons sales and security cooperation, and finally we discussed his views on current US-China relations.

LTG Hooper on Twitter: @LTG_CHooper

Show Notes:

• FAOA Journal of International Affairs (for Foreign Area Officers) 
• The U.S. Military in Support of Strategic Objectives in Latin America and the Caribbean by Prof. Evan Ellis (Army War College) 
• ISIS in the Caribbean
• 美国反对美国 (America Against America) by Wang Huning 王沪宁

Subscribe to China in the Caribbean Newsletter on Substack

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more info on China-Caribbean topics)

Intro Music:
Revenge Dub by Vin Gordon

Outro Music:
Bridges by Shaggy (ft. Chronixx)

It is impossible to have a serious and nuanced conversation on the Caribbean's engagement with China without understanding the historical context of the Caribbean economies. When we study the arc of Caribbean economic history, a wide-scale engagement with China (as the world's largest exporter and soon the largest importer) should not be seen as any kind of hard pivot but instead the continuation of the Caribbean's long-standing trade dynamic.  However, we must avoid falling into the trap of thinking that engagement with China is a zero-sum game.

In this episode I'm joined by Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Professor Emeritus of Economics at University of London and Former Director of Chatham House. He wrote what is perhaps the best book on Caribbean economic history titled 'The Economic History of the Caribbean since the Napoleonic Wars'.

"There is a great deal of pessimism in the Caribbean today - just as there was in the 1930s, 1890s and even earlier. The region has struggled to find the correct policy responses to globalisation, is increasingly marginal to the interests of most more countries, is mostly too "rich" to qualify for aid flows or debt relief, and has failed to build institutions it knows are required. Some of this pessimism is justified, but much of it is not. The Caribbean still has advantages that other less fortunate regions lack and is in a position to resolve many of its problems itself. Whether it does so depends in part on drawing the right lessons from its own historical experience." - Prof. Bulmer-Thomas


Subscribe to China in the Caribbean Newsletter on Substack

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more info on China-Caribbean topics)

Email me: [email protected]

Intro Music:
Rumours by Gregory Issacs

Outro Music:
Hills and Valleys by Buju Banton

Donate
Paxos
0x1fbDB8C50A031c682cad06355197f5639C8343C4

Barbados is 91% Black. East Asians account for just around 0.1% of the country's population.   

In this episode I chat with my friend Lin Jiang (Jack) about his experience growing up and living in the Caribbean. He moved to Barbados when we was 7 years old and immediately had to deal with questions of identity and issues of racism that persist until today.

Subscribe to China in the Caribbean Newsletter on Substack

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more info on China-Caribbean topics)

Email me: [email protected]

Intro Music:
Mr. Sun by Don Carlos

Outro Music:
那阵时不知道 by my little airpot

Donate
Paxos
0x1fbDB8C50A031c682cad06355197f5639C8343C4

From BYD buses in Barbados, Huawei infrastructure in Antigua, Surveillance tech in Jamaica, and ZTE in Cuba, the US-China tech competition dramatically affects the Caribbean. In this episode I am joined by Matt Sheehan to discuss these issues as well as his book: The Transpacific Experiment. He is a Fellow at MacroPolo, a think tank of the Paulson Institute.

Follow Matt on Twitter: @mattsheehan88

Show Notes

• Remaking "Made in China": Beijing's Industrial Internet Ambitions by Matt Sheehan
• How Silicon Valley Views China Across Five Dimensions by Matt Sheehan
• Jamaica Eye
• BYD in Barbados 
• Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister turns down Huawei to appease the US

Subscribe to China in the Caribbean Newsletter on Substack

Message/Follow me on Twitter: @rasheedguo (for more info on China-Caribbean topics)

Email me: [email protected]

Intro Music:
Bridges by Shaggy

Outro Music:
Things In Life by Dennis Brown (you may know this song from Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express)

Donate
Paxos
0x1fbDB8C50A031c682cad06355197f5639C8343C4