Afleveringen
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There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the new "small and beautiful" doctrine that now guides China's Belt and Road Initiative. The problem is that a lot of people still do not understand what it actually means in practice.
President Xi Jinping first unveiled the concept at the Third Belt-and-Road Symposium in 2021 when he said that China's overseas development finance would focus more attention on "better connectivity" for telecommunications, energy, and financial services.
China has also had to scale down its financing of large-scale infrastructure projects because of economic challenges at home and debt sustainability issues among borrowing countries.
Lui Kanyi, a Beijing-based project finance lawyer and head of China at a large international law firm, has been closely following the transformation of the BRI for many of his Chinese clients. Kanyi joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the "small and beautiful" trend and what people should know about the future direction of the BRI.
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Even though the five countries in Central Asia are among the world's largest fossil fuel producers, the region faces chronic electricity shortages due to a lack of refining capacity. The energy crunch is further compounded by a reluctance to become overly dependent on Russian fuel.
To solve both problems, several Central Asian governments are looking to source renewable energy technology from China. While wind and solar still account for a small share of Central Asia's total energy production, that may soon change as more affordable Chinese green tech enters the market.
Yunis Sharifli, an independent Eurasia foreign policy analyst, recently explored this trend in an article published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Yunis joins Eric & Cobus to explain the geopolitics powering the green energy transition in Central Asia.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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India and China have reached a deal to de-escalate tensions along their bitterly disputed border in the Himalayas, potentially ending a contentious four-year stand-off between the two Asian powers.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Monday that the two countries agreed to conduct joint military patrols along the border known as the Line of Actual Control. No details of the pact have been released and the Chinese government has yet to comment on the arrangement.
If the two countries have, in fact, agreed to pull back their forces and disengage, it would have wide-ranging geopolitical consequences throughout Asia. Sushant Singh, a lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University and contributing editor of The Caravan magazine in New Delhi, joined Eric & Cobus to discuss the ramifications of de-escalation along the Sino-Indian border.
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Chinese Premier Li Qiang is in Pakistan this week to get ties with its South Asian neighbor back on track after a series of terrorist attacks this year. The latest incident occurred earlier this month near the airport in the southern port city of Karachi when separatist militants with the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) killed two Chinese nationals in a suicide bombing.
Pakistan has vowed to crack down on the militants but, so far, to little avail. In turn, Beijing has become increasingly frustrated with Islamabad's inability to better protect Chinese interests in the country.
Eram Ashraf, a China-Pakistan relations scholar, explained in a column published in The Diplomat how the violence is taking a toll on this vital Chinese diplomatic relationship. She joins Eric & Cobus to explain what's at stake for both sides if the Pakistani government can't contain the BLA.
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Chinese lending to African countries rebounded in a big way in 2023 after seven consecutive years of decline. Last year, Chinese lenders approved loans totaling $4.61 billion to African borrowers, a dramatic increase over the $922 million lent in 2022, according to Boston University's Global Development Policy Center (GDPC).
In the past, China lent billions to countries like Kenya and Nigeria to build massive infrastructure projects like ports and railways. That is no longer the case today as Chinese lending focuses on smaller, more sustainable initiatives, mainly in the energy, telecom, and logistics sectors.
Kevin Gallagher, director of the GDPC, and Diego Morro, a data analyst at GDPC, join Eric & Cobus to discuss the latest trends in Chinese development finance in Africa and a few of the surprises their research uncovered about which countries are getting the most financing.
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The rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon prompted a strong reaction from the Chinese government this week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib on Monday at the UN in New York and condemned Israel's actions as “indiscriminate attacks against civilians."
It's notable, though, that neither Wang nor other Chinese officials made any mention of Hezbollah's missile strikes on targets in Israel, including those that hit civilian areas.
The deteriorating security environment in the Middle East is a critical time for China, which is transitioning from a strategy of "hedging" to one that is increasingly focused on "wedging."
Jonathan Fulton and Michael Schuman, senior nonresident scholars at The Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., join Eric & Cobus to discuss their new report on China's Mideast strategy and Beijing's new regional priorities.
SHOW NOTES:
The Atlantic Council: China’s Middle East policy shift from “hedging” to “wedging” by Jonathan Fulton and Michael Schulman: https://tinyurl.com/286pyh3o Subscribe to The China-MENA Newsletter by Jonathan Fulton: https://chinamenanewsletter.substack.com/ Subscribe to The China-MENA Podcast on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/256tdywuJOIN THE DISCUSSION:
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For much of the past thirty years, since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been largely unrivaled in its power in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Today, that is no longer the case as the U.S. faces new challenges both from regional powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as international competitors, including China and Russia.
This transition to multipolarity is transforming the region and served as the thesis of a special edition of the academic journal Middle East Policy that came out earlier this year.
Three of the journal's editors on this project, Andrea Ghiselli from Fudan University in Shanghai, University of Naples China scholar Enrico Fardella, and Durham University international relations professor Anoushiravan Ehteshami, join Eric to discuss how the different countries in the region are adapting to the Sino-U.S. rivalry.
SHOW NOTES: Download the Spring 2024 edition of Middle East Policy (you'll need institutional access or have to pay a small fee): https://bit.ly/3XvvLUm
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2024 has been a pivotal year for Brazil-China relations. Last month marked 50 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations, and in celebration of this milestone, President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Brazil by the end of the year.
This visit comes as economic ties between the two countries are booming. Bilateral trade is on track to surpass last year’s $157 billion, and recent data shows Chinese investment in Brazil jumped by 33% in 2023.
Beyond economics, Presidents Xi Jinping and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva share similar ideological views on key global issues, posing a growing challenge to U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.
This week, South China Morning Post correspondent Igor Patrick and Thiago Bessimo, co-founder of the Portuguese-language site Observa China, join Eric to unpack the deepening Brazil-China relationship and its global implications.
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U.S. officials have spoken at length about the urgent need to end their country's dependency on China for the critical resources needed to power next-generation mobility and technology.
Part of the solution, they say, is to compete directly with the Chinese for lithium, cobalt, and other critical mineral mining rights around the world. The problem is few U.S. mining companies today do that kind of work in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia where these resources are found.
But the U.S. is geologically endowed, prompting loud calls to mine these resources at home — which raises another problem.
In his new book "The War Below," Reuters correspondent Ernest Scheyder explains how powerful stakeholders have made it very difficult for U.S. mining companies to operate domestically. Ernest joins Eric & Géraud to explain why the politics of mining make it nearly impossible for the U.S. to compete with China for critical resources.
PURCHASE THE WAR BELOW ON AMAZON: https://tinyurl.com/24ng24tm
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In September 2023, just weeks before Hamas' devastating terrorist attack on October 7th, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his foreign policy advisors were preparing for a summit meeting in China with President Xi Jinping. There were even whispers Beijing would help facilitate a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia much as it did between Riyadh and Tehran.
Now, almost a year later, everything has changed. Sino-Israeli political ties have soured as China aligned with the Arab world and the rest of the Global South in opposition to Israel's war on Gaza. However, while China's standing in Israel has fallen since October 7th, it surged across the rest of the Middle East as more countries in the region regard Beijing as an emerging alternative to the United States.
Gedaliah Afterman, head of the Asia Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations at Reichman University, and Research Analyst Allie Weinberger, tracked China's Mideast power trajectory in a new article published by the Australian Security Policy Institute. Gedaliah and Allie join Eric to discuss what's behind China's growing influence in the Mideast.
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Many small and middle-power countries are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the contentious Great Power rivalry between China and the United States. Even though both Beijing and Washington repeatedly state that they don't want to force other countries to choose one side or the other, it isn't always that simple.
Vietnam, however, stands apart from other developing countries in its ability to effectively manage relations with the major powers, including Russia. The main architect of that strategy, known as "bamboo diplomacy," was Nguyen Phu Trong — the long-serving Communist Party General Secretary who passed away last month.
Phan Xuan Dung, a research officer in the Vietnamese program at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), joins Eric to discuss Trong's legacy and the lessons bamboo diplomacy offers other developing countries.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping has long touted the East's rise and the West's decline, the kind of thinking that's triggered his supporters to fantasize about a post-Western geopolitical order.
While it's indisputable that U.S. and European countries, which represent the foundational pillars of the Western system, have seen their power diminish in the post-Cold War era, there's little credible evidence of a full-blown collapse of Western influence.
Instead, King's College scholar Samir Puri argues in his new book "Westlessness," that the role of the West in the international system is changing and not going away.
Samir joins Eric & Cobus from London to discuss the emergence of a new, less Western global order.
Show Notes:
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The foreign ministers from China, the U.S., Japan, and Russia, among others, all passed through the Laotian capital, Vientiane, over the past several days, ostensibly for an ASEAN gathering. But the real action took place on the sidelines of the meeting, where the ministers held a series of bilaterals that revealed the hardening battle lines among the major powers.
The tense discussions highlight the frontline role that Southeast Asia now plays in this burgeoning geopolitical competition that appears to be intensifying over disputes related to Taiwan, the South China Sea, and surging Chinese influence in the region.
Prashanth Paramaswaran, writer and creator of the popular ASEAN Wonk Substack newsletter, joins Eric to discuss what happened in Vientiane and the latest on the stand-off between Beijing and Manila over territorial rights in the South China Sea.
SHOW NOTES:
ASEAN Wonk: Why New Japan-Philippines Reciprocal Access Agreement Matters ASEAN Wonk: China Crisis Rocks Philippines Second Thomas Shoal Strategy ASEAN Wonk: Vietnam Foreign Policy Futures After Nguyen Phu Trong PassingJOIN THE DISCUSSION:
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The violent confrontation between China and the Philippines on June 17th near the Second Thomas Shoal marked a sharp escalation in tensions between the two countries over their rival territorial claims in the South China Sea.
After the melee that severely injured one Filipino sailor, the two countries engaged in a second battle, this time in the media, to shape the narrative of what happened and where this burgeoning crisis goes from here.
Alex Vuving, a professor at the Pentagon-backed think tank Asia-Pacific Security Studies Center in Honolulu, joins Eric to discuss why the events of June 17th have prompted Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. to recalibrate his strategy.
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Even just a few years ago, it would have stretched credulity to argue that China was a major diplomatic player in the Persian Gulf. Today, that is no longer the case as Beijing is fast becoming one of the key actors in the region.
China is now the largest energy buyer from Gulf countries, it was instrumental in the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Beijing has become a forceful advocate for the Palestinian cause at the UN and other major international fora.
A new book, "A Dragon's Odyssey: China's Rise in the Gulf" charts China's trajectory in the Persian Gulf and how it's become a major player in the region in a relatively short period of time. The book's three authors, Zeno Leoni, Ahmed Aboudouh, and Carlotta Rinaudo, join Eric to discuss how China's rise in the Gulf coincides with perceptions of a U.S. retreat.
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With memories still fresh from the first Cold War, leaders in Africa, Asia, and across the Global South have repeatedly said they do not want any part of a second Great Power rivalry. But as tensions between the U.S. and China steadily deteriorate, the pressure on these smaller, non-aligned countries is going to surge.
The geopolitical dynamics are changing very fast.
Jane Perlez, a renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who spent more than thirty years reporting for The New York Times as a foreign correspondent, laid out the challenges in a new eight-part podcast series on the burgeoning U.S.-China strategic competition.
Jane joins Eric & Cobus from Sydney to share her insights on where this competition is going and what impact she thinks it will have on developing countries.
SHOW NOTES:
Listen to Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China hosted by Jane Perlez: https://tinyurl.com/22kkfpu8
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BYD announced that it opened its 100th dealership in Brazil, highlighting the South American country's growing importance to the Chinese electric vehicle giant. It's a similar story across the board in tech, agriculture, and natural resources, among other sectors.
Trade and investment between China and Brazil is booming and is unlikely to slow anytime soon.
Tulio Cariello, director of content and research at the Brazil-China Business Council joins Eric & Cobus from Rio de Janeiro to explain how Brazil is benefitting a lot from Beijing's souring ties with Washington.
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Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto will take office later this year at a critical time when regional tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea are surging.
And this won't be just a foreign policy challenge for the new president. Chinese ships have crossed into Indonesia's exclusive economic zone near the Nantuna Islands at the bottom tip of Beijing's controversial ten-dash line.
Managing the escalating crisis in the South China Sea is going to be a "pivotal" challenge for Prabowo, according to Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of the China-Indonesia desk at the Center of Economic and Law Studies. Zulfikar joins Eric from Jakarta to discuss how he thinks Prabowo is going to handle what's becoming a very volatile situation.
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It wasn't that long ago the Persian Gulf was a no-go zone for Chinese diplomacy. Back then, China didn't source much energy from Gulf countries, and its diplomats were ill-equipped to handle the region's contentious politics. That is no longer the case.
The six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council collectively form one of China's largest trading blocs anywhere in the world... and not just for energy. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others are now major destinations for Chinese investment in tech, autos, and other non-oil sectors.
But this relationship is still relatively new and often poorly understood by outsiders. The team at the ChinaMed Project issued a new report this month that provides a helpful country-by-country overview of the key issues that frame China's ties in the Persian Gulf.
Enrico Fardella, director of the ChinaMed Project and an associate professor at the University of Naples, along with Andrea Ghiselli, the ChinaMed Project's research director and an assistant professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, join Eric and Cobus to discuss the different narratives about how Chinese and Gulf stakeholders view one another.
SHOW NOTES:
Download the report: Power Shifts? China's Growing Influence in the Gulf: Key Trends and Regional Debates in 2023: https://tinyurl.com/24e4ks4uJOIN THE DISCUSSION:
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Senior U.S. leaders have once again called on China to use its considerable economic leverage to persuade Iran to change its behavior in the escalating conflict with Israel. Various U.S. have made this same request on several occasions already, going back all the way to the day after Hamas launched its assault on southern Israel on October 7th.
Each time, though, those U.S. appeals have largely been ignored by the Chinese.
That raises two important questions: why does the U.S. keep asking if nothing happens? And, even if Beijing was willing to do act, would the leadership in Tehran even listen?
For some perspective on these two questions, Eric spoke with Iran-China scholar Bill Figueroa, an assistant professor at the University of Groningen, who explained why so many in Washington are misreading just how much influence China actually has in Iran.
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