Sponsored by the government organization Hanban, the Confucius Institute has been successfully promoting the learning of Chinese Language internationally. However, it recently inspired a lot of resistance, especially in the San Gabriel Valley, where an editorial in a local paper decried that the Chinese Communist Party is sending Chinese teachers to spread Communist ideology. Is the Confucius Institute a cultural exchange platform or an aggressive arm of Chinese foreign policy?
Some of China’s major news agencies are busy expanding their English-language satellite news networks. For example, CCTV has recently invested six billion dollars in its international satellite news network and has established bureaus all over the U.S. But who is the audience of this media expansion?
As one of the biggest plays for soft power that China has ever staged, the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games was intended to showcase Chinese culture and innovation. However, was it as inspiring in the view of Western core values as Chinese media had praised, or was it more imposing and intimidating? Shanghai EXPO just opened after billions of dollars have been devoted to it by the Chinese government, but do people outside China really care?
In this week’s podcast, Kaiser and Jeremy discuss different facets of the grand Chinese soft power push as an effort to win the world through attraction rather than coercion. Is Beijing’s global soft power charm bearing fruits? Is China making or breaking its public image? Why has Chinese culture not made meaningful impacts on the West? In what ways is China still deficient that would make for real attractiveness?
Joining our podcast this week are Gady Epstein, Beijing bureau chief for Forbes magazine, and Evan Osnos, Beijing-based staff writer for the New Yorker and part-time enforcer in Kaiser's outlaw e-biker gang. We are also proud to have extra commentary from Adam Minter, an American writer in Shanghai who brings us stories from his first-hand encounter with the 2010 Expo.
Another Taiwan Straits Crisis? CIA veteran John Culver weighs in
The Sinica Network presents the Café & Seda (Coffee & Silk) Podcast
Prototype Nation: Silvia Lindtner on what drives Chinese tech innovation, and how tech drives Chinese statecraft
Semiconductors and the unspoken U.S. tech policy on China, with Paul Triolo
Historian Andrew Liu on COVID origins: Orientalism and the "Asiatic racial form"
Yale's Jing Tsu on the characters who modernized Chinese characters
Taiwan: Saber rattling, salami slicing, and strategic ambiguity, with Shelley Rigger and Simona Grano
A Comprehensive Mirror: James Carter's "This Week in China's History" column marks two years
Mental health under lockdown: A clinical psychologist in Shanghai
Covering the U.S.-China relations beat with the FT's Demetri Sevastopulo
Too much of a good thing? Connectivity and the age of "unpeace," with the ECFR's Mark Leonard
The rise and fall of U.S.-China scientific collaboration, with Deborah Seligsohn
Chinese public opinion on the Russo-Ukrainian War, with Yawei Liu and Danielle Goldfarb
China and India share a contested border and an uncomfortable neutrality in the Ukraine War — but not much else
China, Europe, and the Russo-Ukrainian War, with Marina Rudyak
Inside the Shanghai lockdown, with SupChina's own Chang Che
After the War: Scenarios China faces when the Russo-Ukrainian War eventually ends
Susan Thornton on the urgent need for diplomacy with China over the Russo-Ukraine War
Chinese international relations scholar Dingding Chen on Beijing's position in the Russo-Ukrainian War
China's soft power collides with the hard realities of the Russo-Ukrainian War: A conversation with Maria Repnikova
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