Journalist and Musician Kunga Tenzin Dorji, known as Supe, talks about his homeland Bhutan – the landlocked country located in the Eastern Himalayas. Until the 1960s, the kingdom of Bhutan was isolated from the rest of the world. When Bhutan started to open up, it did not modernize blindly, as Supe points out. The tiny nation wedged between India and China was able to preserve its national identity, which remains visible in the country’s cultural heritage, and in its political and socio-economic systems.

Your host: Denise Staubli, Program Manager, Asia Society Switzerland
Moderator: Simona Grano, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Taiwan Studies Project at the University of Zurich (UZH)
Speaker: Kunga Tenzin Dorji (Supe), freelance journalist and musician
Production: Denise Staubli

Show Notes

• Phobjikha Valley – a spectacular wide valley in Bhutan at an elevation of 3’000 meters, where you also find the very endangered black-necked cranes
• Ema Datshi – the national dish of Bhutan 
• Anthony Bourdains’ series Parts Unknown on Bhutan, who gives a good assessment of Bhutan
• The History of Bhutan, by Karma Phuntsho
• So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas, by Barbara Crossette, for a better understanding of geopolitics of Bhutan
• The Circle of Karma, by Kunzang Choden, fiction and quite revealing about Bhutan’s society and culture
• Asia Society Switzerland webcast A Closer Look at Bhutan with Kunga Tenzin Dorji and Dr. Simona Grano, July 1, 2021

Our second podcast season "Meet My Country" is out. In this season, you will learn about a new Asian country in each edition from the perspective of leading local voices.

In politics, if you are criticized from all sides, it’s usually a sign you’ve reached a good compromise. So it was with Switzerland’s recently unveiled China Strategy: It was seen as either being too harsh or way too lax on China. Swiss Ambassador Raphael Naegeli shares with us why Switzerland’s new China Strategy is a good step forward and not all that different from other countries’ approaches.

Your host: Nico Luchsinger, Executive Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Moderator: Nico Luchsinger
Speaker: Ambassador Raphael Naegeli, Head of the Asia Pacific Division, The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland
Production: Denise Staubli, Program Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

Sources:

• Interview with Ambassador Raphael Naegeli with Asia Society Switzerland’s Nico Luchsinger, June 17, 2021
• Switzerland’s China Strategy 2021-2024

As China increases its power and moves westwards, Russia is looking more to the East. The Soviet Union and newly communist China were, at a time, very close. In recent years and especially since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the countries have intensified their relationship. The Sino-Russia relationship is more than a partnership, but less than an alliance as both countries share an ideology based on the notion of sovereignty. 

Your host: Nico Luchsinger, Co-Executive Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Speaker: Alexander Gabuev, Senior Fellow and Chair of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program, the Carnegie Moscow Center
Production: Denise Staubli, Program Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

Show notes:

• Asia Society Switzerland Webcast with Alexander Gabuev Sino-Russian Relations: A Threat for the West?, April, 2020 
• Latest analysis by Alexander Gabuev
• CGTN article Timeline: Highlights of China-Russia ties in the past 70 years by Zhou Jingnan

While China’s largest neighbor India is expected to overtake China by population within only a few years, it is struggling in most other areas to compete with the other giant emerging country. The recent border clashes only led the already complicated relations to deteriorate. As for most countries, India will have to balance furthering its economic potential – that it will not achieve without China – and opposing a China led region by offering other countries opportunities to collaborate.

Your host: Nico Luchsinger, Executive Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Moderator: Nico Luchsinger
Speakers:
Tanvi Madan, Director and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Samir Saran, President, Observer Research Foundation (ORF)
Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram and author
Production: Serena Jung, Program and Communications Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Editing: Denise Staubli, Program Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

Sources:

• Asia Society Switzerland State of Asia 2020: The Indian Imperative, November 27, 2020
• Asia Society Switzerland Webcast 'The Relations Between China and India Have Seen a Stabilization, but No Resolution' , April 16, 2020
• Book Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped US-India Relations during the Cold War by Tanvi Madan, Brookings Institution Press, 2020
• Book  Pax Sinica: Implications for the Indian Dawn by Samir Saran and Akhil Deo, Rupa Publications 2019
• Book The Battle Of Belonging: On Nationalism, Patriotism, And What It Means To Be Indian by Shashi Tharoor, 2020

China has responded to the call for investments in Africa like no other country. Since the end of the 1990s, China’s increasing financial and economic engagement in Africa has led to critical debates whether China can offer a good alternative to Western aid and charity. Its relationships with African countries has also become ever more political.

Your host:  Nico Luchsinger, Co-Executive Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Moderator: Aleksandra Gadzala, Head of Research at The Singularity Group
Speaker: Eric Olander, Co-founder of the China Africa Project (CAP)
Production: Denise Staubli, Program Officer, Asia Society Switzerland

Sources:

• Asia Society Switzerland webcast What is China Doing in Africa? with Eric Olander and Aleksandra Gadzala, May 7, 2020
• Asia Society Switzerland Gen A essay African problems can only be solved by Africans...and Chinese? by Michael Rychener-Schreiner, November 22, 2020
•  Book Africa and China: How Africans and Their Governments are Shaping Relations with China, edited by Aleksandra Gadzala
• The China in Africa Podcast, the China Africa Project (CAP)

China is the largest source of development assistance and investment in Cambodia and Laos. Both governments maintain close relations with China, where its presence is more marked than anywhere else in Southeast Asia. The region is one of the primary targets for the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with one main line running from Kunming, China to Vientiane, Laos to connect Chinese markets to Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar.

Your host:  Nico Luchsinger, Co-Executive Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Moderator: Denise Staubli, Program Officer, Asia Society Switzerland
Speaker: Sebastian Strangio, Southeast Asia Editor, The Diplomat  
Production: Denise Staubli, Program Officer, Asia Society Switzerland

Sources:

• Asia Society Switzerland Mini-Conference The Giant Next Door – China In Southeast Asia, The Case of Cambodia and Laos, November 10, 2020  
• Asia Society Switzerland Mini-Conference The Giant Next Door – China In Southeast Asia, keynote presentation by Sebastian Strangio, November 10, 2020
• In the Dragon's Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century, by Sebastian Strangio, 2020 
• Asia Society Switzerland Webcast Can Laos Cope With Chinese Megaprojects? with Jessica diCarlo and Susanne Schmeier, May 13, 2020

Listen to Asia Society Switzerland's Nico Luchsinger on our first podcast season "China and the World".

China’s relations with the historically more remote, maritime and Muslim-majority countries Indonesia and Malaysia are complex and historically intertwined. For both Indonesia and Malaysia, China is a vital economic partner, but tensions in the South China Sea and anti-China sentiments remain prevalent. The Indo-Pacific being home to significant global trading routes is not only of strategic importance to China. Once again it has become the focus of a global contest for power.

Your host:  Nico Luchsinger, Co-Executive Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Moderator: Richard Maude, Executive Director, Policy, Asia Society Australia
Speaker: Ben Bland, Director of the Southeast Asia Program, the Lowy Institute 
Production: Denise Staubli, Program Officer, Asia Society Switzerland

Sources: 

• Asia Society Switzerland Mini-Conference The Giant Next Door – China In Southeast Asia, The Case of Indonesia and Malaysia, November 10, 2020: 
• Asia Society Switzerland Mini-Conference The Giant Next Door – China In Southeast Asia, keynote presentation by Sebastian Strangio, November 10, 2020: 
• Man of Contradictions: Joko Widodo and the struggle to remake Indonesia, by Ben Bland, 2020
• In the Dragon's Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century, by Sebastian Strangio, 2020