The Nordic Asia Podcast

How could we turn the tables on the military junta who held power in Thailand between 2014 and 2019, by using legal mechanisms to challenge the culture of impunity under which the regime operated? Like previous military coups in Thailand, the May 2014 coup was completely illegal – yet the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), as the regime called itself, did not hesitate to deploy the full force of the Thai legal and judicial system to suppress dissent and crush opposition.In conversation with NIAS Director Duncan McCargo, Tyrell Haberkorn of the University of Wisconsin, Madison explains how her new Guggenheim fellowship is supporting her work to craft a legal indictment of the NCPO. She also plans to re-write the judgements issued in a number of landmark legal cases against junta opponents, as a means of showing how genuine justice might instead be done.Tyrell Haberkorn is professor of Southeast Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. https://alc.wisc.edu/staff/tyrell-haberkorn-2/She is the author of Revolution Interrupted: Farmers, Students, Law and Violence in Northern Thailand (2011) and In Plain Sight: Impunity and Human Rights in Thailand (2018), both from University of Wisconsin Press.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Asianettverket at the University of Oslo, and the Stockholm Centre for Global Asia at Stockholm University.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

How has the study of China evolved in the Nordic region since the 1970s? What are the challenges for Danish scholars of China today? In this wide-ranging conversation, recently-retired Professor of China Studies at the University of Copenhagen - and former NIAS Director - Jørgen Delman discusses his life, his distinguished career and the changing nature of China studies with current NIAS Director Duncan McCargo.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Asianettverket at the University of Oslo, and the Stockholm Centre for Global Asia at Stockholm University.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

Western media accounts often suggest that China is rising inexorably as a global economic and political powerhouse. A new book by Luke Patey offers a more nuanced picture, focusing on the growing backlash against Chinese aspirations. Author Luke Patey, a senior researcher from the Danish Institute for International Studies, discusses his new book How China Loses: The Pushback against Chinese Global Ambitions (Oxford University Press, 2021) with Andreas Bøje Forsby from NIAS. Their conversation covers a wide range of topical issues in the current debate about the rise of China, including China’s economic coercion, the dependency myth and specific manifestations of pushback against China.How China Loses is a critical look at how the world is responding to China's rise, and what this means for America and the world. China is advancing its own interests with increasing aggression. From its Belt and Road Initiative linking Asia and Europe, to its "Made in China 2025" strategy to dominate high-tech industries, to its significant economic reach into Africa and Latin America, the regime is rapidly expanding its influence around the globe. Many fear that China's economic clout, tech innovations, and military power will allow it to remake the world in its own authoritarian image. But despite all these strengths, a future with China in charge is far from certain. Rich and poor, big and small, countries around the world are recognizing that engaging China produces new strategic vulnerabilities to their independence and competitiveness.How China Loses tells the story of China's struggles to overcome new risks and endure the global backlash against its assertive reach. Combining on-the-ground reportage with incisive analysis, Luke Patey argues that China's predatory economic agenda, headstrong diplomacy, and military expansion undermine its global ambitions to dominate the global economy and world affairs. In travels to Africa, Latin America, East Asia and Europe, his encounters with activists, business managers, diplomats, and thinkers reveal the challenges threatening to ground China's rising power.At a time when views are fixated on the strategic competition between China and the United States, Patey's work shows how the rest of the world will shape the twenty-first century in pushing back against China's overreach and domineering behavior. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries began to confront their political differences and economic and security challenges with China and realize the diversity and possibility for cooperation in the world today.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Asianettverket at the University of Oslo, and the Stockholm Centre for Global Asia at Stockholm University.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

In this episode Kennth Bo Nielsen of Asianettverket at the University of Oslo is joined by Niladri Chatterjee (University of Oslo), Zaad Mahmoud (Presidency University) and Arild Engelsen Ruud (University of Oslo) to analyse the results of the recently concluded West Bengal state assembly elections. The elections dealt a major blow to the expansionist ambitions of the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP, while the regional party Trinamool Congress (TMC) scored a landslide victory. How was the TMC able to stop the BJP juggernaut? And what will the results mean for national politics?The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies (CEAS) at the University of Turku, Asianettverket at the University of Oslo, and the Forum for Asian Studies at Stockholm University.About NIAS: https://www.nias.ku.dk/Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: https://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

In this episode Astrid Norén-Nilsson of Lund University discusses her latest research about the Cambodian online news outlet Fresh News with Duncan McCargo, the Director of NIAS. Fresh News has become an indispensable source of information for Cambodia’s political and bureaucratic elite – but just how independent is the platform from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party? How can we classify the role that such new media platforms perform in a hybrid authoritarian political system?Astrid is an associate professor at Lund University’s Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies and a leading expert on Cambodian politics.Her article “Fresh News, innovative news: popularizing Cambodia’s authoritarian turn” appeared in the journal Critical Asian Studies in November 2020.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies (CEAS) at the University of Turku, Asianettverket at the University of Oslo, and the Forum for Asian Studies at Stockholm University.About NIAS: https://www.nias.ku.dk/Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: https://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

This episode is from the opening session of the 2021 Thailand Update Conference, held annually at Columbia University and co-hosted by NIAS. Distinguished Thailand historian Thongchai Winichakul is in conversation with Duncan McCargo on the subject of political protests: how do the student-inspired demonstrations of 2020 compare with those of the 1970s, especially with the 6 October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University?The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies (CEAS) at the University of Turku, Asianettverket at the University of Oslo, and the Forum for Asian Studies at Stockholm University.About NIAS: https://www.nias.ku.dk/Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: https://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

In this podcast, Andrew Nathan of Columbia University talks to Duncan McCargo about the NIAS Director’s recent co-authored book, Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of a Thai Political Party (NIAS Press 2020). How far did the success of Future Forward symbolize the rise of a new and more politically conscious Generation Z, which in turn launched a wave of mass student-led protests during 2020? 

In this episode, Kristian Stokke, Professor at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, and Marte Nilsen, Senior Researcher at PRIO, analyse the consequences of the military coup in Myanmar and the sustained popular resistance this has triggered.

In this episode, Professor Xiangming Chen from the Trinity College in Hartford joins Andreas Bøje Forsby from NIAS to talk about his new book on `The Belt and Road Initiative as epochal regionalization´. Focusing mainly on relations between China and Southeast Asia, the conversation revolves around topics such as infrastructural connectivity projects and regional economic development within the broader BRI framework.

In this episode, Arve Hansen talks to Jonathan London to get an update on politics and development in Vietnam. How do we make sense of the ‘socialist market economy’ today, what came out of the recent party congress, how does Vietnam balance its relations to China and the US, and how does Vietnam’s Covid success impact the legitimacy of the party?