MERICS China Podcast

December 14, 2017At the 19th Communist Party Congress in October, Chinese president and party leader Xi Jinping proclaimed a “new era”. China was ready to become a global power and move to center stage, he said. What lies behind such claims? Has China taken advantage of the global leadership vacuum left by US president Trump? “Xi Jinping is an action-oriented person”, but his foreign policy record is mixed, says Akio Takahara of Tokyo University. Listen to Akio Takahara as he talks about Xi Jinping, rivalries in the Asia Pacific and why China would not abandon North Korea.

October 19, 2017The 19th Party Congress is a “Xi Jinping Show” and China’s political system, under Xi’s rule, has lost much of its flexibility. That’s the rather blunt assessment of David Shambaugh of George Washington University in Washington D.C. Shortly before the start of the 19th Party Congress, Shambaugh visited Berlin and discussed China under Xi Jinping with Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who was equally sober in his assessment of the state of the People’s Republic. The exchange between the two renowned China experts on September 28 was jointly organized by the Robert Bosch Foundation and Merics and was moderated by Merics researcher Kristin Shi-Kupfer. You can listen to an edited version of the public event in our new Merics Experts podcast.

October 17, 2017The 19th Congress of the Communist Party kicks off in Beijing this week with the focus mainly on elite politics and personnel decisions in the top leadership. But the gathering of some 2300 delegates is also an opportunity to take stock of five years of Xi Jinping rule. Internationally, China plays a much more active and assertive role on the international stage. “Xi Jinping has benefitted tremendously from the world leadership vacuum left by US President Donald Trump”, says Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. But, he warns, China’s power projection won’t go very far unless Beijing addresses its “soft power deficit” and starts to respect international rules and laws.

16. Oktober 2017Chinas Staats- und Parteichef Xi Jinping hat die Kommunistische Partei fest im Griff. Auf dem 19. Parteitag der KPC wird er sich als der starke Mann Chinas feiern und für eine zweite Amtszeit bestätigen lassen. Schon in den ersten fünf Jahren an der Spitze der KPC hat Xi die Macht zentralisiert und dafür gesorgt, dass das Ein-Parteien-System stabilisiert wurde. Aktiv nutzt die KPC dabei unter seiner Führung neue Technologien, Big Data und die digitale Transformation. China versuche damit, einen „perfekten Überwachungsstaat“ aufzubauen, der den Gesellschaften westlicher Prägung überlegen ist, sagt Merics-Direktor Sebastian Heilmann. Auch international wähnt sich China derzeit auf „der Gewinnerstraße“, so Heilmann im neuen Merics Experts Podcast.

Vor dem 19. Parteitag am 18. Oktober versucht die chinesische Kommunistische Partei mit aller Macht das Land auf Linie zu bringen. Doch trotz jahrelanger massiver Zensur und parteistaatlicher Durchdringung der sozialen Medien sind die öffentlichen Diskussionen über die politische Ausrichtung der Volksrepublik nicht völlig verstummt. Im neuen Merics Experts Podcast berichtet Kristin Shi-Kupfer, Leiterin des Forschungsbereichs Politik, Gesellschaft und Medien, von ihrer neuen Studie über das politische Meinungsspektrum in China und die Versuche der KPC, die Bürger ideologisch stärker an sich zu binden.

26. September 2017China hat große Fußballträume und steckt viel Geld und Energie in die Entwicklung des Sports. Dabei hilft, dass auch Bundesligavereine China längst als Markt entdeckt haben. Top-Clubs wie Bayern München und der BVB Dortmund spielen regelmäßig im Reich der Mitte und haben dort eigene Büros eröffnet. Was bringt die deutsch-chinesische Zusammenarbeit? Warum geht etwa der BVB eine Partnerschaft mit einem chinesischen Club ein? Darüber hat Kristin Shi-Kupfer vom MERICS am 5. September bei der MERICS China Lounge mit Carsten Cramer, Marketing-Direktor des BVB gesprochen. Eine gekürzte Fassung der Veranstaltung hören Sie im neuen MERICS Experts Podcast.

September 15, 2017In setting up the so called Social Credit System, China plans to monitor, rate and regulate the behavior of citizens and companies with the help of big data, rewarding those who obey the rules and punishing those who cheat or don’t conform. “Social Credit is seen as a means of making people, companies, entire industrial sectors and the government more honest by monitoring behaviors,” says Shazeda Ahmed, a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Visiting Academic Fellow at MERICS. The digital mechanism the system is based on will collect data on every single person in China by 2020. What motivates the government? What are the biggest challenges in setting up the system? And: how do people in China think about this system? Listen to our latest MERICS experts podcast.

August 2, 2017The Chinese government spends millions to develop the Tibetan areas of China. But what can investment achieve in these remote regions? Can it create sustainable jobs and change people’s lives? The economist Carsten Holz of Hongkong University of Science and Technology has spent many months on the Tibetan plateau in Western Sichuan to study how Beijing’s policies affect local people’s lives. Roads have improved and access to education has increased, he says. But restrictions on travel, unequal pay and a heavy security presence fuel resentment. The central government hasn’t managed to buy the hearts and minds of the Tibetans. Listen to Holz’s observations in the new Merics Experts podcast.

July 14, 2017The announcement by US President Trump to withdraw from the Paris Agreement is a setback for international climate policy but “it will not derail the process,” says Karsten Sach, Germany’s top climate negotiator. At a conference in Berlin, jointly organized by MERICS, the European Climate Foundation and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) he called on the international community to place climate policy “at the heart of economic, development and fiscal policies” to reach the Paris target of limiting global warming to 2C. He talked to Björn Conrad, MERICS Vice President Research, about climate policy in the Trump era, China’s new attitude and new perspectives for cooperation.

July 10, 2017Despite US President Trump’s planned withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, many American citizens, city mayors and companies still want to move ahead with transitioning to a low carbon economy. „Trump’s power isn’t as strong as you may think,“ said Barbara Finamore, Asia Director of the American environmental organization Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC) recently in Berlin. Still, Trump’s announcement has damaged America’s international standing, she said and called on China and Germany to now take leading roles in the fight against global warming. Finamore was talking to MERICS Communications Director Claudia Wessling at a conference jointly organized by MERICS, the European Climate Foundation and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC).