Talks on China

The emergence of highly infectious coronavirus variants has strained the Chinese Communist Party’s zero-COVID policy to breaking point. The economic struggles and growing civilian frustrations caused by unrelenting lockdowns threaten to undermine the narrative of China’s superiority in responding to the pandemic - and the image and stature of Xi Jinping’s rule.

Chris Cash and Julia Pamilih are joined by Carl Minzner, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor at Fordham Law School, to discuss the social and economic costs of Xi’s zero-COVID strategy and what we can learn from the politics surrounding the policy, ahead of this year’s 20th Party Congress.

How sustainable is zero-COVID as the rest of the world opens up? Has Xi successfully removed or silenced all political opponents as he seeks to cement an unprecedented third term in power?

Carl is the author of End of an Era: How China's Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise, in which he boldly argues that China's reform era is ending and outlines the looming risks of instability.

You can also find Carl on Twitter.

China's efforts at home and abroad to become a global leader in digital technologies is a challenge for the UK and its allies. How has Beijing set about shaping the new global digital architecture and how should we respond?

Chris Cash is joined by Emily de la Bruyère, co-founder of Horizon Advisory, a strategic consulting firm focused on the implications of China’s competitive approach to geopolitics, to discuss the motives behind China's global digital strategy, its ambitions to lead the world in setting technical standards for emerging technologies, and how the UK and like-minded democracies could respond.

Emily recently co-authored a new report titled: China’s Digital Ambition: A Global Strategy to Supplant the Liberal Order. You can read it here.

Hong Kong stood out as an international COVID success story before a recent Omicron outbreak took hold of the city. What could have been done to prevent the tragic scenes of hospitals being overwhelmed? Has the Hong Kong government lost all democratic accountability?

Quartz journalist Mary Hui joins Chris Cash to discuss the reasons behind Hong Kong's lack of COVID preparedness, the erosion of democracy under the National Security Law, and Beijing's endgame for the city. Mary also shared her thoughts on Hong Kong's status as an international business hub and whether it will last.

You can follow Mary on Twitter - @maryhui

As the thawing of the Arctic has increased its geopolitical prominence and potential economic viability, new players have expanded their presence and influence in the region. China - a less obvious player in the Arctic - has in recent years pressed for a greater role in regional affairs.

Chris Cash is joined by Lukas Wahden, a Yenching Scholar at Peking University, to discuss his LSE IDEAS piece on the steps China will have to take to reach its goal of becoming a ‘polar great power’. Lukas explains how cooperation between China and Russia in recent years has added an intriguing complexity to Arctic geopolitics and how Beijing sees the region as key to refining its image as a global power. The impact of the war in Ukraine on the Arctic balance of power is also explored in this podcast.

Read Lukas's piece: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/cff/2021/11/24/in-the-russian-arctic-china-treads-on-thinning-ice/

The greyzone is defined as "competitive interactions among and within state and non-state actors that fall between the traditional war and peace duality." But what do these interactions look like and how can we deter the most harmful greyzone activities engaged in by hostile states?

Chris Cash is joined by Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and writer at the Financial Times and Foreign Policy magazine, to discuss how greyzone aggressions target our institutions. Elisabeth lays out the complex nature of nonmilitary threats to national security, China's greyzone tactics, and the need for whole-of-society responses in liberal democracies.

Read Elisabeth's latest book - The Defender's Dilemma

Follow Elisabeth on Twitter - @elisabethbraw

Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, China and Russia appeared to be growing ever closer. Russian President Vladimir Putin being one of a handful of known leaders to attend the Winter Olympics, where he signed a landmark strategic partnership with his counterpart, President Xi Jinping. Will that 'no limits' partnership survive Russia's newfound pariah status?

In this live event, co-chair of the China Research Group Alicia Kearns MP was joined by Professor Sergey Radchenko, Dr Maria Repnikova and Bonny Lin. These three leading Sino-Russian experts set out the historical and geopolitical context of the China-Russia relationship and answered questions including:

Find the full transcript of the event on our website.

China has one of the world’s most restrictive media environments, relying on censorship to control information in the news, online, and on social media. But how does internet censorship in China actually function?

Chris Cash is joined by Molly Roberts, a political scientist at UC San Diego and author of the groundbreaking book ‘Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China's Great Firewall’, to discuss China's censorship apparatus. Molly explains how censorship in China has evolved, how it impacts those who experience it and why certain narratives about censorship can be misleading. The conversation extends to censorship in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak and the disappearance of tennis player Peng Shuai.

The KPR study: How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression

Molly's book: Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China's Great Firewall

In a recent House of Commons debate, MPs pledged to explore new avenues for cooperation with Taiwan and promote its voice on the international stage. But why is the political status of the island so complex and in which areas could deeper cooperation be pursued?

Chris Cash is joined by Joe Gayeski and Libby Lange, research students at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, who have written a paper for the China Research Group on why climate could become a key domain for bilateral cooperation between the UK and Taiwan. They discuss the meaning of the cross-Straits 'status quo', the UK's approach to Taiwan, and why climate cooperation can benefit both parties.

You can read their paper in full on the China Research Group website. 

The case of Christine Lee shot to national attention when news broke that the Speaker of the House of Commons had warned MPs that there was a Chinese agent operating in parliament. But why is Lee perhaps just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Chinese interference in the UK political system and how can the UK better defend itself against such threats?

Chris Cash is joined by Martin Thorley, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter whose research has uncovered Chinese party-state activity in the UK and evidence of compromised actors within the British establishment. They discuss the activities of the United Front and the groups it has targeted, the UK's approach to foreign interference, and how East Asian diaspora communities can be protected amid wider geopolitical struggles.

You can read Martin's now famous Twitter explainer thread on the Christine Lee case here.

Martin also penned an article for The Guardian in which he described how the UK and China find their relationship in a current state of 'phoney peace'. You can read that article here.

Three experts, Rui Ma, Rogier Creemers and John Lee, joined the China Research Group to discuss China's evolving tech landscape. 

Rui, Rogier and John discussed how China sees the role of technology in relation to the country's economic and social development - and how common prosperity will shape the relationship between the state, society and tech firms.

The panellists also analyse China's rapidly developing semiconductor industry, including how US sanctions played a crucial role in accelerating its development. And they put out some suggestions at where the UK should focus its efforts, and where China is gaining a first-mover advantage on the rest of the world when it comes to data.