The Belt and Road Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Ocean Consciousness and the Maritime Silk Road with Tabitha Grace Mallory and Andrew Chubb May 30, 2024

Show notes

Tabitha Grace Mallory and Andrew Chubb visit the Belt and Road Podcast to chat about China's ocean economy, maritime activities, and the role of concepts like ocean consciousness.
Dr. Tabitha Grace Mallory is CEO of the consulting firm China Ocean Institute, and an affiliate faculty member of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Tabitha specializes in Chinese foreign and environmental policy and researches China and global ocean governance. She has consulted for the UN, WWF, the World Bank, and the OECD, she serves on the board of directors of the China Club of Seattle, and is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the Washington State China Relations Council.
Andrew is a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. His work examines the linkages between Chinese domestic politics and international relations, and more broadly he looks at maritime and territorial disputes, strategic communication, political propaganda, and Chinese Communist Party history. Andrew is the author of Chinese Nationalism and the Gray Zone: Case Analyses of Public Opinion and PRC Foreign Policy and the PRC Overseas Political Activities: Risk, Reaction and the Case of Australia.
Recommendations:
Andrew:

Haver, Zoe; China Maritime Report No. 12: Sansha City in China's South China Sea Strategy: Building a System of Administrative Control (2021)

Tabitha:

The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch (2021)
The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development by Shiping Tang (2022)

Erik:

Japan; specifically, record shopping in Japan
BM-01 record

Juliet:

Rodenbiker, Jesse; Global China in the American heartland: Chinese investment, populist coalitions, and the new red scare (2024)

Thanks for listening!

Leland Lazarus on Triads, Taiwan, and China's Forum Diplomacy in Latin America and the Caribbean Apr 22, 2024

Show notes

Leland Lazarus joins Juliet to talk about Chinese and Taiwanese engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean, from official diplomatic activities to BRI projects to transnational organized crime.
Leland Lazarus is the Associate Director of National Security at Florida International University’s Jack D. Gordon Institute of Public Policy. He is an expert on China’s relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, and manages a team of researchers and interns that collect data and analysis on U.S. national security and governance in the region. Fluent in both Mandarin and Spanish, he holds an M.A. in U.S.-China Foreign Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a B.A. in International Relations at Brown University. His past experience includes work in the U.S. Embassy for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, the U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang, China, and former work as an Associate Producer at China Central Television and as a Fulbright Scholar in Panama.

Recommendations:
Leland:

Earth League International's work, particularly that of Andrea Crosta, founder, executive director, and board member
Chinese Activities in LAC Dashboard (soon to release 2.0)
FIU flagship conference: Hemispheric Security Conference on May 9 and 10

Juliet:

China in Global Capitalism: Building International Solidarity Against Imperial Rivalry by Eli Friedman, Kevin Lin, Rosa Liu, Ashley Smith (coming June 2024)

Thanks for listening!

Environmental Justice and Coal-Fired Power Plants in Indonesia with Bowen Gu Mar 08, 2024

Show notes

Bowen Gu joins Juliet and Erik on the podcast to talk about environmental justice and China's coal investments in Indonesia, with a focus on Gu's recent paper: Black gold and green BRI: A grounded analysis of Chinese investment in coal-fired power plants in Indonesia (2024).
Bowen Gu is a PhD student at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). Her research looks into coal-related environmental justice movements in China and broader regions under the Belt and Road Initiative.
Recommendations:
Erik:

Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City by Darren Byler (2022)
The symphonies of Glenn Branca (especially no.10)

Bowen:

Land, Water, Air, and Freedom: The Making of World Movements for Environmental Justice by Joan Martínez-Alier (2023)
Album of Indonesian music (name tk)

Juliet:

The Railpolitik: Leadership and Agency in Sino-African Infrastructure Development by Yuan Wang (2023)

Thanks for listening!

An Anthropological Understanding of Chinese-financed Special Economic Zones in Nigeria with Omolade Adunbi Nov 09, 2023

Show notes

Professor Omolade Adunbi joins Juliet and Erik on the podcast to talk about China's free trade zones in Nigeria. Adunbi is the Director of the African Studies Center, Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies, Professor of Law, and Faculty Associate in the Program in the Environment at the University of Michigan. His research explores issues related to governance, infrastructures of extraction, environmental politics and rights, power, violence, culture, transnational institutions, multinational corporations, and the postcolonial state.
Recommendations:
Omolade:

Music of Fela Kuti
Power, Knowledge, Land: Contested Ontologies of Land and its Governance in Africa by Laura German (2022)

Erik:

Episode of the Sinica Podcast: Robert Daly of the Kissinger Institute on the morality of U.S. China policy
Laufey's music, specifically her new album Bewitched

Juliet:

Cooperating for the Climate: Learning from International Partnerships in China's Clean Energy Sector by Joanna Lewis (2023)

Thanks for listening!

How China is Reshaping International Technical Standards with Tim Rühlig Sep 27, 2023

Show notes

Juliet, Erik, and guest Tim Ruhlig discuss technical standards, China’s growth in technical industries and its increasing influence in leading and setting standards, and the new geopolitics of technical standardization and interdependence.

Tim Ruhlig is a senior fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, where he researches Europe-China relations, German-China relations, Hong Kong politics, and Chinese foreign industrial policy, He is the founder of the Digital Power China (DPC) Research Consortium, which brings together European engineers and Chinese scholars to carry out policy-relevant research on the PRC’s growing digital technology footprint and its implications for Europe.

Recommendations:

Tim:

The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century, Jonathan Hillman (2020)
U.S.-Taiwan Relations: Will China's Challenge Lead to a Crisis? Bonnie Glaser, Ryan Hass, Richard Bush (2023)
Film: “To Life” Zhang Yi Mou (1994)
Wildland: The Making of America's Fury, Evan Osnos (2021)

Erik:

"Barbie Heimer"—Barbie (2023) and Oppenheimer (2023) movies on the same day (recommendation is Barbie is the better movie)

Juliet:

“Even China Isn’t Convinced It Can Replace the U.S.” Jessia Chen Weiss (2023)

Thanks for listening!

Funding the Pre-Project Pipeline: China's New MCDF with Shuang Liu Aug 20, 2023

Show notes

Before the shovels hit the dirt, before a developer gets construction permits, before an MOU is signed, there exists a huge process of project feasibility, planning, and pre-approval. That process is incredibly complex and costly, but a new Multilateral Cooperation Center for Development Finance (MCDF) has been established to help. Shuang Liu joins Juliet and Erik on this episode to discuss how this might help kick start and expand the pipeline of more sustainable projects, and her broader goals in working at the World Resources Institute.
Shuang Liu is the China Finance Director and Acting Director at the Sustainable Finance Center at the World Resources Institute. She leads the Center's work on China finance and the Belt and Road Initiative, and works with governments, private financial institutions, NGOs, and other partners to enhance the regulatory framework and provide enabling conditions to shift China's investment to sustainable finance. She holds a master's degree in environmental and resource economics from University College London and a bachelor's in economics from Peking University.
Her article on the Panda Paw Dragon Claw blog is entitled, "Can a Chinese-led multilateral initiative help unlock more sustainable infrastructure in the Global South?"
Recommendations:
Shuang:

An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn (2018)

Juliet:

Try to bike more in the summer, or pick up any activity that is good for both yourself and the planet!

Erik:

Outsourcing Repression episode of the Pekingology podcast with Lynette H. Ong and host Jude Blanchette
Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China by Lynette H. Ong (2022)

Thanks for listening!

China, the U.S., and Critical Minerals in the DRC with Laetitia Tran Ngoc Jul 13, 2023

Show notes

Juliet chats with Laetitia Tran Ngoc about the state of China-Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) relations, the way people in the DRC view China and the U.S., outside interest in critical minerals mining in the DRC, and the domestic situation of the DRC that acts as a destabilizing factor to it all.
Her article in South China Morning Post is here: "Mineral-rich central Africa become focal point in US-China tug of war"
Laetitia Tran Ngoc is a freelance journalist and consultant specializing in government communications, with extensive experience in advising diplomatic institutions in their strategic relationship with the European Union. Her writing focuses on central and east Africa and China-Africa relations. She previously worked as a research officer at the Embassy of Ethiopia in Brussels and at the Taipei Representative Office to the EU and Belgium. She has master’s degrees in International Relations and Chinese Language and Culture from the Free University of Brussels.
Recommendations:
Laetitia:

Sur les ailes du dragon: Voyages entre l'Afrique et la Chine (On the Wings of the Dragon) by Lieve Joris (2014)

Juliet:

The Conservation Revolution: Radical Ideas for Saving Nature Beyond the Anthropocene by Bram Büscher and Robert Fletcher (2020)
Fighting Fire and Fascism in the American West in Dissent Magazine, by Patrick Bigger and Sara Nelson (2023)

Thanks as always for excellent editing by Taili Ni!

Thanks for listening!

The Periphery Perspective: Global China from the Borderlands with Ale Rippa Apr 28, 2023

Show notes

Alessandro (Ale) Rippa joins Juliet and Erik on the podcast to talk about how he uses China's borderlands as a starting point to understand the Chinese state, global engagements like the Belt and Road Initiative, and Chinese development. They discuss Ale's experiences working in China's border regions in Xinjiang and Yunnan, how borders are zones of connection and disconnection, China's historical support for the Communist Party of Burma, and much more.
Alessandro Rippa is associate professor at the University of Oslo's Department of Social Anthropology. His research centers on China's borderlands as lenses for studying infrastructure, global circulations, and the environment. He is PI of a new ERC Starting Grant project entitled, "Amber Worlds: A Geological Anthropology for the Anthropocene".
Featured work:

"Imagined borderlands: Terrain, technology and trade in the making and managing of the China-Myanmar border." 2022. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography .
"Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development, and Control in Western China."

Recommendations:
Ale:

Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia edited by Max Hirsh and Till Mostowlansky (2023)
Keep an eye out for the upcoming special issue of The China Quarterly on Chinese infrastructure

Erik:

Scribd.com for eBooks and audiobooks
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell (2020)
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell (2021)

Juliet:

Fractured China: How State Transformation is Shaping China's Rise by Lee Jones and Shahar Hameiri (2021)
Sinica Podcast: Sinica at the Association for Asian Studies Conference, Boston 2023: Capsule interviews

Thanks for listening!

China's Growing Flirtations with International NGO Collaboration with May Farid and Hui Li Mar 24, 2023

Show notes

May Farid and Hui Li drop by the podcast to talk about INGOs, or international non-governmental organizations, and specifically how their relationship with China is shifting as China goes global. The conversation focuses on their article "International NGOs as intermediaries in China's 'going out' strategy."
May Farid is a political scientist studying civil society, policy and development in contemporary China and beyond. She is a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center on China's Economy and Institutions and a Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and has worked extensively in the NGO sector in China, as well as a researcher with China's leading policy think tank.
Hui Li is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on public and nonprofit management, organization theory, and civic engagement. In collaboration with a team of researchers, she studies NGOs and environmental governance in authoritarian China. In addition, she works closely with colleagues from the Civic Engagement Initiative at USC and studies neighborhood councils and civic engagement in Los Angeles.

Recommendations:
Hui:

Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics by Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink

May:

Principled instrumentalism: a theory of transnational NGO behaviour by George E. Mitchell and Hans Peter Schmitz
Beyond the Boomerang: From Transnational Advocacy Networks to Transcalar Advocacy in International Politics edited by Christopher L. Pallas and Elizabeth A. Bloodgood
Leutert, Wendy, Elizabeth Plantan and Austin Strange. "Puzzling Partnerships: Overseas Infrastructure Development by Chinese State-Owned Enterprises and Humanitarian Organizations". 2022.

Erik:

Two albums by Lingua Ignota
- Sinner Get Ready
- Caligula
RRR film

Juliet:

Follow Yige Dong, assistant professor of global gender and sexuality studies at the University at Buffalo
Dong, Yige. The Dilemma of Foxconn Moms: Social Reproduction and the Rise of 'Gig Manufacturing' in China. 2022.

Thanks for listening!

COP15 and China's Growing Environmental Leadership with Jesse Rodenbiker and Tyler Harlan Jan 17, 2023

Show notes

Juliet is joined by friends and fellow researchers Jesse Rodenbiker and Tyler Harlan to discuss their recent experiences at the COP15 of the Conference on Biological Diversity, China's growing environmental leadership, and China's domestic environmental policies and their impact on BRI initiatives and overseas engagements. Jesse starts off the conversation with some background on China's approach to environmental governance - based on his articles "Making Ecology Developmental: China's Environmental Sciences and Green Modernization in Global Context," "Green silk roads, partner state development, and environmental governance," and his upcoming book "Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China."
Jesse Rodenbiker is an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University with the Center on Contemporary China and an Assistant Teaching Professor of Geography at Rutgers University. He is also currently a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, and a China Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is a human-environment geographer and interdisciplinary social scientist focusing on environmental governance, urbanization, and social inequality in China and globally.
Tyler Harlan is an Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at Loyola Marymount University. His research focuses on the political economy and uneven socio-environmental impacts of China's green development transformation and the implications of this transformation for other industrializing countries.
Juliet Lu is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in the Department of Forest Resources Management and the School of Public Policy & Global Affairs.
Recommendations:
Jesse:

Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell
Rosewood by Annah Lake Zhu

Tyler:

Certifying China by Yixian Sun
China and the global politics of nature-based solutions in Environmental Science & Policy (2022) by Jeffrey Qi (former BRI Pod episode!) and Peter Dauvergne
China's rising influence on climate governance: Forging a path for the global South in Global Environmental Change (2022) by Jeffrey Qi and Peter Dauvergne

Juliet:

Check out the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) (where Jeffrey Qi incidentally works ;) for interesting analysis on the Convention on Biological Diversity and China.

Thanks for listening!

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