This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Raffaello Pantucci, co-author of the 2022 book Sinostan: China's Inadvertent Empire, which examines China's presence in Central Asia. Based on extensive travel and interviews undertaken both before and after the tragic murder of his co-author, Alexandros Petersen, in 2014, the book is a highly readable if difficult to categorize melange of analysis and anecdote, history and travelogue, and it paints a complex portrait of China's extensive efforts to build out a network of commercial and cultural ties throughout the pivotal region.
3:48 – Remembering the late Alexandros Petersen
9:35 – Xinjiang’s importance in Beijing’s Central Asia policy
13:36 – Central Asian states’ reactions to Xinjiang internment camps
24:39 – Assessing China’s soft power in Central Asia
37:10 – BRI: strategic calculus or ad-hoc scramble?
43:32 – Evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
49:45 – China’s characterization of terrorism
54:45 – The SCO today and China’s growing security footprint
1:03:03 – China in Afghanistan
1:10:36 – Current status of the BRI
A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.
Recommendations:
Raffaello: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan; The Geographical Pivot of History by Halford Mackinder
Kaiser: Volt Rush by Henry Sanderson
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
No Stranger to China: A conversation with Strangers in China creator Clay Baldo about Season 3
Author Rebecca Kuang on her novel Babel, or on the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators Revolution
The best solution for Taiwan is no solution: Jude Blanchette and Ryan Hass argue for kicking the can down the road
China's push for RMB internationalization
A familiar drumbeat: Michael Mazarr on the run-up to the Iraq invasion and parallels with China
Special episode: The COVID lockdown protests, with David Moser and Jeremiah Jenne
Financial Times reporter Yuan Yang on China-Europe relations
Evan Feigenbaum on the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region
New America President Anne-Marie Slaughter on balancing China competition and global imperatives
The 20th Party Congress postgame show with Damien Ma and Lizzi Lee
Grifter, chaos agent, or CCP spy? The New Yorker's Evan Osnos on Guo Wengui
Overreach and overreaction, with Susan Shirk
Podcasting The Prince: Sue-Lin Wong of The Economist on her Xi Jinping podcast
Legendary BBC presenter and China editor Carrie Gracie, live in London
A conversation with Minister Xu Xueyuan, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Washington
China in the Global South, with Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden
Surveillance State: Authors Josh Chin and Liza Lin on their new book on China's tech-enhanced social controls
Yuen Yuen Ang on Xi Jinping, the Party bureaucracy, and authoritarian resilience
Avoiding the China Trap, with Jessica Chen Weiss
Is China's bubble finally about to pop? A conversation with Bloomberg Chief Economist Tom Orlik
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free