Talks on China

Chair of the China Research Group, Tom Tugendhat MP was joined by Desmond Shum for a conversation on Desmond's recent book Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China, a rare look at the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party. Desmond's journey as a successful businessman during China's boom period in the 2000s took him close to the nexus of power at the top of the Chinese Communist Party. After studying in the US and working in Hong Kong, he moved back to Beijing, where he married Whitney Duan. Whitney was close to Zhang Peili, the wife of Wen Jiabao (China's premier from 2003 to 2013).  The relationship gave Desmond insight into power, wealth and corruption across China in a period where its GDP was growing by 10% a year. Together, Desmond and Whitney leveraged their business and political connections to cut major business deals, pulling off the development of the largest air cargo logistics facility in China, the Beijing Airport Cargo Terminal.  In his book, Desmond argues that entrepreneurs felt the tightening of CCP control as early as 2008. But Desmond and Whitney experienced significant pressure in 2012 when the New York Times splashed on the ‘hidden riches’ of Wen family corruption, which implicated his wife Whitney. And after three years under Xi's rule, Shum decided to leave the country in 2015 and move to the UK. Whitney disappeared in China in 2017. No one had heard from her for four years. But on the eve of Red Roulette's publication earlier this year, Desmond received a call from Whitney - who asked him not to publish the book. The discussion includes Desmond's perspective on Xi's power base and the political slant of his anti-corruption campaign in 2012/13, how China's 'red aristocracy' controls the CCP and the situation in Hong Kong. Further reading: Buy the book: Red Roulette by Desmond Shum on Waterstones. Red Roulette: It Sucks to be a Chinese Billionaire on ChinaTalk.

With COP26 set to kick off at the end of the week and President Xi's attendance looking unlikely, we were joined by three experts for a panel discussion on China’s efforts to combat climate change - and what a successful COP 26 would look like. All three panellists have worked closely with China on climate change. Former Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd led the UK’s delegation at COP15 in Paris, Isabel Hilton founded the influential ChinaDialogue, and Alex Wang is a Professor at UCLA and Faculty Co-Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, having previously worked for an American NGO in China. The discussion touched on China’s long-term attitude to climate change, the effectiveness of Western pressure and the false dichotomy between cooperation and competition. The three panellists also discussed how China and the West’s standing with lower-income countries could shape the outcome of the Glasgow summit. Read the full transcript here on our website. Further reading:  Analysis: Where does China stand on climate change ahead of COP26? by Chris Cash, Researcher at China Research Group The Chinese government's new '1+N' policy framework for achieving carbon neutrality (EN).

Two data experts from AidData, Bradley Parks (Executive Director) and Dr Ammar Malik (Senior Research Scientist), joined us to discuss their findings from their recent paper: Banking on the Belt and Road. The paper draws on a new dataset covering 13,427 Chinese development projects in 165 countries, worth over $843 billion.  Since the BRI, was introduced, China has spent roughly $85 billion a year on overseas development projects. That means that China has eclipsed the US on overseas spending by a 2:1 and the UK on a 7:1 basis. But while Western countries provide financing through ODA and grants, China's financing is almost all through debt, not grants. This lending has also shifted from sovereign debt to special purpose vehicles, state-owned enterprises, and joint ventures, creating a new trend of "hidden debt" which is not tracked by the World Bank. The authors also look at how the BRI emerged as an innovative response to China's domestic economic challenges, including capitalising on the commodity price crash after the global financial crisis.  Read the full transcript here. More reading: Details of each project can be found on AidData’s website. China Research Group paper on the Belt and Road.

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.

Where do Xi Jinping and the CCP stand - domestically and abroad - at the end of 2021?  This week, Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair of China Studies at CSIS, joined Tom Tugendhat for a rapid review of the key political and economic moves in 2021 in China. What did the politics of the Sixth Plenum tell us about Xi's power? Is China's new style of diplomacy here to stay? And what does common prosperity mean for Chinese tech firms - and the Western finance industry?  Listen for an expert breakdown of the CCP's 2021, at a time when Jude warns we are in "a moment of acute epistemological crisis" for our understanding of China. A transcript of this episode is available on the China Research Group website. Further reading: After Xi: Future Scenarios for Leadership Succession in Post-Xi Jinping Era by Jude Blanchette and Richard McGregor for CSIS.

As part of its Indo-Pacific Tilt, the UK is deepening its engagement with South East Asia. But what does the strategic environment look like and what are South East Asian countries looking for from the UK? Julia Pamilih is joined by Charles Dunst, an adjunct fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Southeast Asia programme. They discuss the impact of China's vaccine efforts, the role of ASEAN and CPTPP and mixed support for further military presence in the Indo-Pacific region. This podcast follows Charles' new paper for the China Research Group. He argues that South East Asian countries welcome more engagement from countries like the UK — but won’t stop engaging China. The UK should pursue deeper ties with them nonetheless.

As part of the Integrated Review published earlier this year, the UK formalised its tilt to the Indo-Pacific. Our panel discussion with Claire Coutinho, Michael Auslin and Sophia Gaston provided insight and analysis of one of the generational changes in British foreign policy. How should the UK maintain its interests and deepen its engagement with the region? What can it realistically seek to achieve and which relationships should it be prioritising? And what has it achieved so far? 

With the WTO in desperate need of reform and Australia hit by trade sanctions by the PRC, do we need a new allied trade treaty? How should the UK, EU and US come together to rethink the economic challenge posed by China? This event took place in tandem with the launch of a new policy paper written for the China Research Group by Robert D. Atkinson, which you can read here. The paper looks at whether democratic nations should form an allied trade treaty to combat Chinese trade aggression. This event was chaired by Tom Tugendhat MP, with the following speakers. Speakers: Rob Atkinson. Founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), recognised as the world’s top think tank for science and technology policy, and author of upcoming paper for the China Research Group: NATO for Trade. Reinhard Butikofer. Member of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA) and the Co-Chair of the European Green Party (EGP). He is the Chair for the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China. Agatha Kratz. coordinates Rhodium Group’s European activities and leads research on European Union-China relations and China’s commercial diplomacy. She co-authored the paper “Home Advantage: How China’s Protected Market Threatens Europe’s Economic Power”.

The FT’s Global China Editor, James Kynge, joined us to discuss his perspective on how the next generation of technology is shaping geopolitics. Over half of global trade is digital, and trust issues have suddenly become front and centre to global trade and investment. That lack of trust is increasingly leading to technological bifurcation. The discussion also touched on China's pursuit for self-reliance, Beijing's policies towards big tech and how the digital currency could affect the internationalisation of the renminbi.

The China Research Group was joined by experts George Magnus and Elizabeth Economy for a discussion chaired by Jeremy Hunt MP. Given some predict China will overtake the US as the world's largest economy by 2028, how should we understand China's ambitions for the next decade of its economic rise? And what does China's economic rise mean for the rest of the world?  Read the transcript here.

Our new China Research Group paper, written by Eyck Freymann, is now published: 'The UK's Strategic Options: Belt and Road'. -- Back in 2013, President Xi Jinping unveiled his expansive vision of a modern Silk Road, promising to revolutionise China's global influence. Eight years later, and 130 countries have signed up to Xi’s signature foreign policy. But the ‘project of a century’ remains loosely defined and poorly understood. Despite accusations of predatory debt diplomacy, Chinese infrastructure lending has been in decline since 2019. Instead, a new phase of the Belt and Road has been accelerated by the pandemic. China has pivoted away from physical infrastructure and accelerated its expansion of the Digital, Green and Health Silk Roads. But what does the future of this version of the Belt and Road Initiative look like? And should like-minded democracies respond? We were joined by a panel of three experts for a discussion moderated by Tom Tugendhat MP, Chair of the China Research Group. Jonathan Hillman - Senior Fellow at CSIS and Director of the Reconnecting Asia Project Meia Nouwens - Senior Fellow at IISS and Digital Silk Road lead Eyck Freymann - Author of One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World and doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford

In this conversation, Rana Mitter joins Tom Tugendhat MP, chair of the China Research Group, for a discussion on the UK's relationship with China and China's wider foreign policy. Rana discusses the value of the Chinese public's trust in the UK, and the need for the UK to be more aware of its strategic strengths in the relationship. He also answered questions on the broader picture of the Belt and Road, China's relationship with Pakistan and India, and the influence of the CCP on modern Chinese society. Rana Mitter is Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford. He has written widely about modern China, having authored several books looking at China's historical perspective. He has also written a paper with Sophia Gaston for the British Foreign Policy Group assessing UK-China relations.

Our panel of experts joined us to give some insight into how US-China relations will evolve under newly-inaugurated President Biden. Gideon Rachman (Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator at the Financial Times), Dr Evan Medeiros (Penner Family Chair of Asia Studies at Georgetown University, Former Director for China at the NSC and lead advisor on Asia-Pacific under President Obama) and Jude Blanchette (Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS). The wide-ranging conversation looked at policy priorities for President Biden’s new team and why the next 18 months of Chinese politics may represent a window of opportunity for Western democracies to coalesce and change the cost-benefit equation of CCP aggression.  Our speakers also answered questions on US and China's use of sanctions, and the necessity and difficulty of forging democratic coalitions. The panellists also discussed areas where the UK could offer strategic and symbolic value to the US, before concluding on the topical question of whether the US should boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics. The full transcript is available on our website.

Alicia Kearns and Charlie Parton discuss the United Front Work Department.

Our podcast is back! In this episode Alicia Kearns MP and Professor Steve Tsang will go in depth into CCP influence in UK universities.

In early October, the US government rolled out extensive new restrictions on China’s access to advanced semiconductors, which play a central role in sectors such as quantum computing and weapons manufacture. The order by President Biden is unprecedented in modern times and is designed to cut China’s legs off as Washington and Beijing compete for technological advantage. Chris Cash is joined by Sarah Bauerle Danzman, Associate Professor of International Studies at Indiana University and non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, to discuss the reasons behind these restrictions and their knock-on effects around the world. Why is the US going down this route now and how did we get here? For the US and its desire to stay ahead of a fast advancing China, will these restrictions be enough? What are the global implications of the acceleration of the balkanisation of key supply chains and what do US allies make of the restrictions?

If China seems unstoppable, so too can its leader Xi Jinping. And yet we know very little about the man who commands over 1.4 billion people, in a vast country that spans prosperous megacities and desperately poor rural regions. Chris Cash is joined by Adrian Geiges and Stefan Aust, authors of the newly-translated biography ‘Xi Jinping: The Most Powerful Man in the World’, to discuss the story of Xi’s life and career, what he really wants, and how he is positioned ahead of the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress. How did Xi develop his ideological convictions and why do we struggle to understand them? Why does he have an uneasy relationship with the legacy of Mao? What are the greatest challenges to his rule? You can purchase Adrian and Stefan’s must-read biography here.

In April 2022, Xi Jinping announced the Global Security Initiative (GSI), a new Chinese foreign policy initiative proposed as a solution to a rapidly deteriorating international security environment. Some view the initiative as China’s latest bid to tilt the rules-based global order in its favour, but what does it actually mean for the future of the international security architecture? Chris Cash and Archie Brown are joined by Ovigwe Eguegu, a policy analyst at Development Reimagined who has written extensively on China-Africa security engagement, to discuss the GSI's key concepts and its implications for the future of China's engagement within the developing world. What is the GSI? Does the combined package of the GSI and the Global Development Initiative announced last September mark a shift away from the Belt-and-Road Initiative’s investment-driven model of engagement? How are these initiatives likely to be received in the developing world? You can read Chris's latest paper on the GSI, written in conjunction with the Council on Geostrategy, here.

In response to US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, Beijing conducted large-scale military exercises across the Taiwan Strait. Its actions have been met with international alarm, with commentators declaring this as a ‘new normal’ for cross-strait relations. Chris Cash and Archie Brown are joined by Alessio Patalano, a Professor of War and Strategy in East Asia in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, to discuss these military exercises and their implications for the future of cross-strait relations and regional stability. Why did Beijing feel compelled to launch such a robust military response to Pelosi's visit? What are the implications of Beijing’s efforts to normalise increased military aggression across the Strait? How have key stakeholders such as the US and Taiwan responded? How can the UK and its European partners help to de-escalate the situation?

In November 2021, Barbados became the latest Commonwealth nation to remove the Queen as its head of state. Some British policymakers and commentators attributed this trend to growing Chinese influence in the Caribbean, but does this narrative reflect the reality on the ground? Chris Cash and Archie Brown are joined by Rasheed Griffith, a non-resident senior fellow with the Asia and Latin America programme and the Inter-American Dialogue and head of operations at Merkle Hedge, to talk over the nature of Chinese engagement in the Caribbean and how it's shaping regional developments. What does the 'China colonisation’ narrative get wrong about the Belt and Road Initiative in the Caribbean? What are the factors driving deeper trade and investment between China and Caribbean nations and how well equipped are Caribbean governments to deal with China? How can the UK become a more serious regional partner?