Canada and the World, Ep. 17: The rise of China

A new podcast series
from OpenCanada.org and the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

By: /
30 November, 2018
https://soundcloud.com/canada-world/china-ep-final

An “unprecedented discipline and silence” in China. An economic slowdown. A trade war with the United States. What is the state of power and politics in China and what does it mean for the rest of the world? An all-star panel chats with podcast host Bessma Momani on what you need to know to understand what is happening within China at the moment, from surveillance to industry to the One Belt, One Road initiative, and why the world should care. What, for instance, is behind tensions against China’s minority groups? Is there something to the comparison of President Xi Jingping and Chairman Mao? How has the economic slowdown impacted foreign investment and various levels of Chinese society? And what does it all mean for Canada? 

Our host

Bessma Momani is professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and University of Waterloo and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. She’s also a non-resident senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. and a Fulbright Scholar. She has been non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and a 2015 Fellow at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. She’s a frequent analyst and expert on international affairs in Canadian and global media. 

This week’s guests

Akbar Shahid Ahmed is a foreign affairs reporter based in the D.C. bureau of HuffPost. A native Pakistani, Akbar has reported from across the Muslim-majority world. He’s also written for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Generation Progress and, in Pakistan, Newsline magazine and DAWN, and provided expert commentary for MSNBC, Al Jazeera, BBC Radio and SXSW 2018.

Anton Malkin is a research fellow in the global economy program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). His research focuses on China’s role in the global economy and in global economic governance. At CIGI, Anton has published works on capital account liberalization in China, China’s relationship with the International Monetary Fund and regional financial governance arrangements, the capital account liberalization in China, and the impact of China’s high-tech industrial policies on global trade governance.

Hongying Wang is an associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She teaches courses on international political economy, the global south, Asian politics, Chinese politics, Chinese political economy, and China and global governance. She is the author of Weak State, Strong Networks: The Institutional Dynamics of Foreign Direct Investment in China (Oxford University Press).  She is the co-editor of Enter the Dragon: China in the International Financial System (Center for International Governance Innovation). 

Canada and The World is produced and edited by Matthew Markudis. Each episode can be found on iTunes and other podcast applications. 

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

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