The China Current with James Chau

Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand and Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. Today, she is a pivotal leader who is exercising her statesmanship against COVID-19, the greatest threat to space and security. In her communications with the UN Security Council and G20 leaders, she has made a clarion call for a global coordinated action to include urgent funding, debt relief, and a reset mindset that will allow countries to go hard and forward together. Our host James Chau speaks with Helen Clark in this special interview from her home in Auckland.

 

Part1: A Threat to Stability

Part2: Convening Platforms

Part3: Trading Stigma for Solidarity

Part4: Meeting the Needs of Now 

We've brought you many conversations with people shaping the response and looked at the consequences for highly vulnerable communities, like refugees, asylum seekers, and people of color. But the fallout from this pandemic is only becoming more apparent as each day passes. That's why our host James Chau speaks to art historian Manfredi della Gherardesca, who provides a lens by which we can digest the world before, during, and after COVID-19. Like many people, he is also a first-hand participant in the complexities of the lockdown, choosing to leave his home in London for his home country of Italy, even though it is one of the worst-affected of all.

Filippo Grandi brings enormous field experience in emergency operations to his role as UN High Commissioner for Refugees - and compassion and kindness, too. Today, there are 70.8 million forcibly removed people, whose challenges and those of their host communities are compounded by COVID-19, the biggest threat to humanity in almost a century. What future awaits these individuals, many of whom have no home or access to clean water - but are being told to stay indoors and wash their hands? And what hope do they have in this era of lockdowns and closed borders, when movement and escape are sometimes their only means of survival? In this special conversation, our host James Chau speaks with Mr. Grandi about the human condition that impacts us all.

 

Lateefah Simon is a prolific civil rights and racial justice advocate, community leader, and elected public official in the San Francisco Bay Area. As the pandemic deepens in the United States, groups like the Black Lives Matter warn that people of color will be harder hit, because of a inequities in a healthcare system that often means higher rates of chronic disease, and lower access to basic services. Our host James Chau worked with Lateefah in AIDS, and in this interview they discuss the stakes for people of all colors, the future they face, and what chance they have in this emergency. She says when they unify, they unleash the collective power of the American promise.

Costantino della Gherardesca is an Italian writer and television host on the popular show Pechino Express. Due to the pandemic, he has relocated to Rome, where the entertainment industry has come to a near standstill. Costantino says people need emotional relief from the realities of the daily news. It is his public duty, he says, to entertain people and make them smile again - now more than ever. Our host James Chau speaks to Costantino about his role as a leading cultural figure in Italy. Together, they unpack the social landscape and how it is shaping the response in one of the worst-affected countries.

“Everything that happened in China will have to happen in other economies.” Renowned economist Lawrence Lau speaks on the economic, governmental, and societal impacts of the current global health crisis. Professor Lau has lived more than half his life in the United States, studying first at Stanford and Berkeley, before joining the Stanford faculty and becoming a professor at the age of 32. After the onset of SARS, he became the Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he continues to serve as the Lauder Professor of Economics. Our host James Chau interviewed him in Hong Kong. 

In these uncertain times, it’s important to see the current crisis as a human crisis, and remember that radical acts of kindness can bring us closer together and help to make this world a better place to live. One such example is the Shangri-La Hotel in Wuhan. In the midst of the global health crisis, the five-star multinational hotel group provided rooms – a home – for 236 health workers who volunteered to the original epicenter of the crisis, and cooked 24,000 meals for doctors and nurses in hospitals nearby. Given the emergency the city was in, this was a unique challenge in itself. Our host James Chau spoke to Charlie Dang, Executive Vice President for Operations in South China at Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, to understand how acts of kindness in challenging times make us human.

Gender is always critical and again in the COVID-19 pandemic. Early data shows high-risk groups including the ageing population and those with underlying health issues such as long-term heart, liver, kidney and lung disease. But we are also beginning to know that men are more susceptible to infection, though the reasons for this are not clear. At the same time, with women making up the majority of the world’s health workforce, what is the opportunity here to create a new movement for equality, so that the legacy of COVID-19 can produce some meaningful good for all of us? Our host James Chau speaks to Professor Sarah Hawkes, Director of the Centre for Gender and Global Health at the University College of London, and Co-Founder of Global Health 50/50.

Last Wednesday, our host James Chau interviewed Andrea Pastorelli, a friend in Rome who graciously agreed to speak about his experience being in lockdown in Italy. What he didn't know was that Andrea and his husband Seth Doane, a CBS correspondent, had that same day been tested for COVID-19. While Andrea was negative, Seth's result returned positive. Here, we get an inside look into Italy during this unprecedented time—a first-hand look into the private lives of friends and families at the European epicenter. We wish Andrea and Seth, and everyone following us, good health. 

One year ago, Dr. Takeshi Kasai was elected the World Health Organization Regional Director of the West Pacific—a region composed of 37 countries and areas, from China to American Samoa, from Australia to the Philippines, where he is based. At its heart are 1.9 billion people —a quarter of humanity— with vastly different health needs and a great number of dynamic micro-communities. Our host James Chau speaks with Dr. Kasai on how COVID-19 continues to impact this region, the template it offers to the unfolding global pandemic elsewhere, and why he is adamant that the disease is called "COVID-19" — and nothing else.