UPenn Center for the Study of Contemporary China

Current headlines about how authoritarian regimes have come to harness the internet may obscure how this technology, at one time, was more typically understood to be democratizing. In the early days of Chinese cyberspace, popular expression on internet forums seemed to herald a new stage in political activism, that was pressing the boundaries of state control. In this episode, UPenn Prof. Guobin Yang discusses the evolution of social media on the Chinese internet, and its changing political implications.

Launched by China in June 2015, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ("AIIB") currently has eighty-six members and, with $100 billion in capital, has lent around $4 billion to infrastructure projects throughout Asia. The AIIB's very creation is an important marker in China's economic and strategic rise over the past forty years. In this episode, the inaugural general counsel of the AIIB, Natalie Lichtenstein, discusses with Neysun Mahboubi the background and early history of the Bank.

As the nuclear standoff between North Korea and the United States dominates global headlines, the relationship between North Korea and China, though little understood, has attracted ever greater interest. In this episode, the Harvard Kennedy School's John Park, a leading expert on security issues relating to Northeast Asia, discusses with Neysun Mahboubi the complex relationship between North Korea and China.

China's economy is currently the world's second largest, by GDP, and is generally expected to overtake the U.S. economy within the next decade. In this episode, the Paulson Institute's Damien Ma, a leading expert on Chinese economic trends, discusses with Neysun Mahboubi the key features defining China's economy today, and some likely forecasts for the near future, with particular attention to the policy and personnel implications of the recent 19th Party Congress.

China’s 19th Party Congress, held in October 2017, drew significant anticipation and attention, not only among professional China watchers, for its domestic meaning and foreign policy signals, at a time when the PRC is staking out a new role on the world stage. In this episode, Boston University Professor Joseph Fewsmith, one of the leading experts on Chinese elite politics, discusses with Neysun Mahboubi the politics surrounding this latest Congress.

President Trump's November 2017 visit to China, and four other Asian countries, comes at a charged time in US-China relations, when its perennial challenges and opportunities appear in particularly sharp relief. In this episode, Penn experts Avery Goldstein, Jacques deLisle, and Amy Gadsden discuss with Neysun Mahboubi the President's upcoming trip, with special attention to key topic areas that will be implicated by this week's meetings in Beijing and other Asian capitals.

China and India share many historical similarities, as well as a complicated relationship shaped by political differences, growing economic ties, ongoing border disputes, and regional competition more generally. In this episode, Georgetown University Professor Oriana Skylar Mastro discusses the Sino-Indian relationship with CSCC Research Scholar Neysun Mahboubi, with particular attention to the recent Doklam standoff, as well as implications for U.S. security policy.