Episode 39: What Should We Make of Human Rights in China?

This week on What China Wants, Sam and Stewart are joined by Josh Kurlantzick, Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, to discuss Beijing's media influence. Josh sets out his analysis of China’s attempt in recent years to become a global media and information superpower, and we discuss whether these efforts are working.

In recent weeks, the "two sessions" have taken place in China, at which President Xi's third term was confirmed by the nearly 3,000 delegates that constitute the National People's Congress. Due to the relative opaqueness of decision-making in Chinese politics, these important events in the political calendar are relatively unknown outside China. To help listeners understand more about them, and what their significance might be globally, this week on What China Wants, Sam and Stewart are joined by friend of the show, Professor Jinghan Zeng of Lancaster University.

This week on What China Wants, co-host Stewart Paterson is interviewed by Sam Olsen about the outlook for the Chinese economy. We discuss the post-covid outlook as well as the key challenges facing the economy and the Party leadership looking forward. 

In this episode of What China Wants, Sam and Stewart discuss the issue of human rights in China. To do so, they are joined by Benedict Rogers, Co-Founder of Hong Kong Watch and one  of Britain’s foremost and most knowledgeable campaigners on the subject. We discuss some of the key issues raised in his book, The China Nexus, including allegations of human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, organ-harvesting from prisoners of conscience, as well as some of the criticisms commonly levelled at critics of China's human rights record.LinksBenedict Rogers - The China Nexus

This week, Sam and Stewart are joined by Charles Parton OBE, a former diplomat who is presently a specialist adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee at the UK Houses of Parliament and Associate Fellow of RUSI. Charlie spent 22 years of his 37 year diplomatic career working in or on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In this episode he discusses his latest paper on the importance of cellular Internet of Things (IoT) modules and the threat posed to UK supply chain security by the pervasiveness of Chinese cellular IoT modules in our systems and processes.LinksThe full paper is available here.

This week on What China Wants, Dr William Matthews, Director of Research at the Evenstar Institute, joins Sam and Stewart to discuss their latest research, "Southeast Asia's Emerging Geopolitical Order: China's Structural Influence and the Evolving Regional Balance of Power". The report quantifies and explains the evolution of China's Influence in Southeast Asia through the analysis of all ten ASEAN member states over the period 2011-2020. In this interview, William and Sam explain its key findings and policy recommendations for the UK and its allies.

This week on What China Wants Sam and Stewart are joined by Rebecca Ray, Senior Academic Researcher at the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center to discuss their latest research. The GDP Centre has just published an update to their China Overseas Development Finance (CODF) Database. Having provided a staggering amount of finance for overseas development projects in the wake of the global financial crisis, Chinese overseas development finance has been on a general downward trend for several years. On this episode, we discuss the status and trajectory of China’s overseas development finance. Are we at the beginning of a new era? LinksChina Overseas Development Finance DatabasePolicy Brief: "Small is Beautiful" - A New Era in China's Development Finance?

On this week's episode, Sam and Stewart are joined by Sarah Kirchberger, Head of Asia-Pacific Strategy and Security at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University, and one of Germany’s and Europe’s leading experts on the Moscow-Beijing relationship. Sarah is also one of the editors of the 2022 paper Russia-China Relations: Emerging Alliance or Eternal Rivals, which is available and free to download. We discuss the Russia-China relations past and present, the impact of the war in Ukraine and what future may lay ahead for this bilateral relationship.

Join us as we get ready to say 新年快乐!  (Happy New Year!) and welcome in the Year of the Rabbit, as Chinese New Year falls this coming Sunday, 22nd January. Despite it being perhaps the largest ceremony or festival in the world, it is really not very well known in the West, nor are its fascinating intricacies, practices and folklore. Sam and Stewart are delighted to be joined by Professor Jinghan Zeng of Lancaster University for this special edition of What China Wants. We discuss its origins, traditions as well hear an insight into Professor Zeng's own personal experiences of the celebrations.

This week on What China Wants, Sam and Stewart review the past year. They discuss the  key political and economic events for China in 2022, as well as debate the outlook  ahead of us, looking forward into what 2023 might hold for China and the world.