Archive

December 16th, 2014 Bridge Cafè (Wudaokou)

Speakers:
Prof. WANG Qisheng, Department of History, Peking University
Prof. Silvio Pons, Director, Gramsci Institute (Rome)

Presentation

Prof Silvio Pons pondered over his recent book, The Global Revolution: The History of International Communism 1917-1991 before making any statements among audiences. Raising his eyebrows, he started unfolding the outline of his book that was published by Oxford University Press. Pons asks a very fundamental question, ‘what is international communism’. Starting from this, he revolves around the central theme of his book, which is a history of the world during a certain period of time from communist revolution and it’s failure perspective.

Pons, who is taken seriously in his observation and study of Cold War, has divided his work of Global Revolution in specific six major themes. Which are: history of communism & global history, international communism as a subject, monocracy vs. hegemony, the end of international communism, political decline & communism, and lastly crisis of legitimacy.

In a short interval of time, Pons structured his lecture based on this division of his book. He also touched upon how communist countries were balancing power during the Cold War and to what extent it was effective in terms of maintaining power and sustaining legitimacy. “Communism was both a political culture and power strategy,” Pons said. “International communism and its impact in the global trend and politics can be explained with the help of history of nations that were ruled by communist during the period of Cold War.”

The process of globalization started as the communism was being working in the former Soviet Union. “Slowly, it failed to keep up with the time and development,” Pons said. The economic reforms that were made during the period of Cold War in communist countries were not helping them to grow, as Pons put it.

Moving towards the global history, as in his book, Pons said that the communism was failed global project and it hardly delivered anything in the long run. “Communism was an international phenomenon and its impact was global,” Pons said. “It was also an international ideal. Its geopolitical movement and strategies were stunning. The way former Soviet Union countries were operating was quite influential at that time.”

Arguing that his book has established a relationship between the history of communism and main process of globalization, he said that his work also gives a narrative of history of Cold War and its multifaceted development. Pons said that the international communism was a basic concept at the beginning of it. He puts it, as it was a process in the world as protagonists of that period behaved. “Around the end of the Cold War, or with the fall of Soviet Union, international communism had already lost its appeal in the global scale,” Pons said.

Exploring the nooks and corners of the history of communism, Pons did his best to give a feel of his whole book to audience. “I think the world was different during the period while international communism was seemingly successful,” he said. “Slowly, international communism became a myth and people started to question it.”

Showing how international communism was being portrayed in the world, he argued that historians have to grasp the centrality of its transnational relations between the revolutionary state and the movement for most of the last century. “But they should not supress the multidimensional nature of the history of communism,” he said. “My book proposes in particular to investigate the methods, limitations and failures of the Soviet Union and international communism in the exercise of hegemony and search of legitimacy,” he said indicating towards his further comment on the issue of legitimacy of power during that period of time.

Going to the time after World War II and talking on the aftermath of it, Pons said that the communist movement was compact and integrated. “However it had a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions, which led it towards failure,” he said. “The security dilemmas and revolutionary ambitions were not easy to synchronize.” The structure influence and development of international communism started to go downhill as ‘nationalizing’ the communist started to take place by states.

After mapping the history of international communism, Pons started to talk on the global impact of Chinese revolution and Sino-Soviet split. “Khrushchev’s demolition of Stalin’s reputation in 1956 heralded the decadence of the Soviet myths. The rebellions and repressions in Eastern and Central Europe from 1953 to 1956,” he said. “The expansion of communism in the post-colonial world did not counterbalance the repercussions of de-Stalinization.”

In the case of China, Pons says that Mao Zedong split from Moscow because of his own autonomy and radicalism generated by a sufficiently independent revolution. “That shattered the communist unity,” he said firmly. “This also pushed towards the shift of balance of power and created unfavourable direction for the Soviet Union.”

He argues that the monocratic system of command and its imperial behaviour created more division and tension than unity and harmony.

As all these things were happening, all of a sudden a crisis popped up in the communist world. That was a search of legitimacy and immediate realization of situation where there was no new source of legitimacy. Meanwhile, the impact of western globalization also fuelled the force, which was looking and asking for legitimacy of monocratic system in the communist world. “Deficit of legitimacy, dogmatic immobility and cultural marginality created a crisis ultimately,” he said. “The USSR and the Soviet-type economies were not capable of keeping up with the globalizing capitalist economy and communist project failed.”

[WANG Qisheng]Talking on, ‘International Communist Movement, China’s Revolution and ‘China Model’, he shared his experience how new generation of young Chinese people ask what it means by ‘international communism’. “I was reading my paper on the way to come here, a young guy sitting next to me asked a very compelling question,” he said. “The guy asked me what it means by international communism.” He goes on saying that this shows how Chinese young people are very far from communist thinking.

Giving a very striking lecture on the topic, he said that the China was very much a communist country during Chairman Mao Zedong’s time. “It has tremendously changed since then and people are far more concerned about other things than the issue of communism,” he stated. Mentioning time and again that all what he was saying was his personal views, he puts that the China has its own model of communism. “It is not true that the China was very much influenced by international communism,” he says. His views are that for China being a communist country in this history has a significant reason.

“It was for the matter of national honour and for the sake of national sovereignty in the world, which was being increasingly globalized and countries were losing their dignity,” he said. “However, there is a connection between the Soviet communism and establishment of People’s Republic of China.” He highlighted that after China was established, it also started to distance itself from the Soviet Union. “China weakened its relationship and connections with international communism and Soviet Union,” he said.

Documents are scarce to see how things were evolving at that time and how party’s foundation was going on. “Still, what scholars see is that the Chinese people were increasingly interested in international communism at that time,” he said. “Interestingly, Chinese people were also very interested in capitalism as well.” He argued that these two situations of Chinese people show that they are always flexible in learning new systems that are best for the development and well being of people. He goes on saying that the Chinese people saw Westerners being more successful than the former USSR. But there came a time when Karl Marx explained the five stages of society. “Chinese people learnt that the communist system could help to reach to the higher stage of the society as per Marx showed in his work,” he explained. “This lured Chinese people more than the Western style of development.” Chinese people learnt from Marx that communist system could help them to jump from feudalism to capitalism, he said.

China went through a difficult time during twentieth century fighting against many feudal dynasties. One after another, and the Chinese revolution was the most significant one and it established People’s Republic of China.

Then, there was Deng Xiaoping in 1978 and reformed the Chinese economy and made it possible to have double-digit economic growth. That made Chinese people to forget about the issue legitimacy of power. “Chinese people were so happy that they let the power to work as it wanted since it was working on developing the economy and give a better life to the people,” he said.

This newly coined “Chinese Dream” is also a part of the government insistence to build an economy where people can attain what they want. “Now there is an official stance that the China is adopting a system called, ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’ and it will work on making China better,” he said. “But in my words, it is ‘capitalism with Chinese characteristics’ and this is quite very close to successful system.”

To be more precise here, Wang puts it as “China is in the transitions from 1949 period to reach at the level of fully sophisticated capitalism.”

Going to the issue of capitalism, Wang says that the Communist revolution came to an end with the death of Chairman Mao in China. There is all now left is a thrust for development and a search for more vibrant system that helps people to have what they want. Coming to the conclusion, “we are at the early stage of capitalism in China,” he says.

Q & A

Addressing the question related to China seeking legitimacy in economic terms in the contemporary world, Pons said that there is a kind of mood, which makes it seem like that China, is seeking for legitimacy in economic fronts. However, he added that it is in a totally different approach. During the 20^th century, search for legitimacy was an alternative modernity. But these days, it has changed. Now, if China seeks for legitimacy it would be connected with what. “That remains a question,” Pons said.

Delving into the question whether capitalism is closer to the human nature or is it inherited with the human, Wang said that this could be possible. “But in case of China, people were more inclined to communism because it was related with their dignity and saving the country from external forces and attacks,” Wang said. Communism failed and it was more a political failure than as an economic failure. “The economic repercussions of that failure came later,” Wang added. Seventy-eight years ago, people were hardly concerned about the issue of legitimacy. In recent times, people have been much more concerned about the source of legitimacy in China as well.

Rest of the questions were related to pros and cons of Soviet Union, negative impact of communism and why Chines people are being more and more inclined towards asking for personal space as called freedom and strikingly searching for source of legitimacy of power and party rule.

Report by: Bhoj Raj Poudel

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Paolo Davide Farah, West Virginia University (USA), gLAWcal (UK) & EPSEI EU Commission Research Project

Professor Paolo Davide Farah (PhD, PhD, LL.M, J.D.) works at West Virginia University (WV, USA) where he teaches climate change, energy and environmental law and policy. Prof. Farah has previously taught public international law, international economic law, international business law, company law and international environmental and energy law in Liverpool, United Kingdom (2012-2014), at University of Milan and Turin in Italy (2003-2011). He is also Principal Investigator of European Commission research funded projects at the University Institute of European Studies (IUSE) in Turin (Italy) www.iuse.it and Research Scientist and Principal Investigaror of gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (United Kingdom) http://www.glawcal.org.uk . His main research and teaching areas of interest are public international law, international economic law and WTO law, European law, Intellectual Property law, Comparative law & Chinese law, climate change, environmental law and energy law. He is an expert in the interaction among trade, economic globalization and non trade concerns, such as sustainable development, energy, environment and human rights with a special focus on China and other Asian countries. In June 2013, he was invited by Routledge Publishing to act as Editor-in-Chief and Director of the Book Series of “Transnational Law and Globalization”. He is also Editor-in-Chief and Director of the Book Series on “International Economic Law, Globalization and Development” of Wolters Kluwer (CEDAM).

王奇生 Wang Qisheng, a former researcher at the Second Historical Archives of China and at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), is Professor of Modern History at Peking University. His major areas of expertise are the political history of the Republic of China and the history of KMT and CCP. He published extensively on the history of Chinese Revolution in the 20^th Century. He is author of books including: Party Members, Party Power and Party Struggle – the KMT Organization in 1924-1929 (2010) and Revolution and Counter-Revolution: Republican Politics in Social-Cultural Scope (2010) and KMT-PCC Cooperation in the National Revolution, 1924-197 (2006).

event #41 December 16th, 2014

Prof. WANG Qisheng 王奇生
Department of History, Peking University 

Prof. Silvio Pons
Director, Gramsci Institute (Rome) 

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After the great success of the past editions, the ThinkIN China team, EURAXESS Links China and the Understanding Science team are delighted to invite you to the Fourth edition of Researchers’ Night, which will take place both in BEIJING (December 4th) and SHANGHAI (December 9th).

In a relaxed atmosphere, you will have a chance to meet fellow researchers working on similar topics and reach out to new contacts among the international research community in Beijing and Shanghai.
The free event is open to Ph.D. students, postdocs and senior researchers from all fields.

Drinks and food on the house!

For the BEIJING EVENT Please register before Sunday, December 1st:
http://researchers-night-beijing.splashthat.com

For the SHANGHAI EVENT Please register before Thursday, December 4th:
http://researchers-night-shanghai.splashthat.com

You can scan the QR code in the flyers or following these link beijing | shanghai

DATES AND VENUES

BEIJING: December 4th, 2014,  7pm
Steps bar -Chengfu Lu 35, Huaqing Jiayuan 12 (west of Wudaokou Station)
北京市海淀区成府路华清嘉园12号楼

SHANGHAI: December 9th, 2014 (Thu) 7pm
Kaiba Tap House, 169 Jiangguo Middle Road
Huangpu District, Shanghai 200231
黄浦区建国中路169号

December 1st, 2014 Bridge Cafè (Wudaokou)

Speaker: Dr. MAO Ziwei (毛紫薇), Research Analyst to Energy Program, World Resource Institute (WRI)

Discussant: Prof. Paolo Farah, West Virginia University (USA), gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (UK) & EPSEI Scientific Coordinator EU commission Research Project

Presentation
China and the USA signed a climate change deal in last Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing showing a great responsibility to the life of the planet that we are living in. As China is experiencing a rapid economic growth expecting to surpass the USA in few decades, the issue of environment and climate change are also equally on the surface. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has an enormous challenge of ensuring the growth and balancing the national economy but also being careful about the environment protection. In this backdrop, China’s low carbon dream is equally important as the ‘China Dream’ for people as well as for policy makers. The rising middle-class of China, which is shifting itself from village to the urban areas, shows concern about the environmental degradation.

While the issue of environment comes to the level of scholars table in China, there are certain questions that casually asked such as: why this issue at this time, why in China and what it has to do with the whole thing that are going in terms of economic development. “I will try to touch upon these questions here this evening,” Mao, a research analyst at WRI said beginning her talk among audience. The process of urbanization in China is higher than in any other countries at this time in the history. This dramatic shift of economy through urbanization has a lot to do with sustainability of the development path of the country, Mao said. The urbanization rate of the world in 1800 was just 3 percent whereas it will be around 70 percent by 2050. This rapid urbanization shows how dramatically the economic architecture of the entire world is changing. This unprecedented rate of urbanization poses both challenges and opportunities for all economies in the world. Highlighting the specific case of China, Mao said that it is yet to see what sorts of economic and environmental challenges China will face in the future due to this situation.

Presenting the figures of CO2 emissions in the planet, Mao mentioned that around 75 percent emission comes from urban areas. “That means the more we get urbanized the more problems and challenges will be there in the world for the mankind,” Mao said. “Decisions that the city dwellers make now will affect the lives of the future generations to a large extent.” The environmental architect that the cities will lead to construct in the world will not be sustainable from the point of view that we are living now. This suggests that we are at the right time to make change and work on let out environment to be completely damaged. “It becomes our responsibility to protect it and keep this safe as it is for the next generation,” she said. According to figures that Mao presented, there will be additional 1.5 billion populations in the urban areas by 2030 in the world. Similarly, the consumption pattern and life style of the city can get locked easily in this trend, which will not be healthy for the long-term environmental protection in the world.

While talking about China, the urban population was just 18 percent in 1978 whereas it has reached to 52.6 percent in 2012 and has been estimated to reach 65 percent by 2030. These sweeping changes have been helping China to grow rapidly but at the same time, this is incredibly unmanageable from the environment perspective. “Air, water and earth all are getting polluted very fast and there is no way going back to stop it. The only way is to slow it down and look for sustainable measures to advance the economy,” Mao said. Along with the economic prosperity and development, China is also one of the major CO2 emitters and vulnerable to climate change. “This brings us to face one of the major challenges of managing energy for the future,” Mao said explaining why and how China should be aware of the climate change effects at this time more seriously than any other nation in the world. She added that the environmental pollution is also one of the most pressing issues. This might be the reason, why, Mao continued, “climate change and its implications have become major topics of discussion within China”. Intellectuals, academia and policy makers including party leaders all are engaged in a debate how to balance the sometime conflicting goals of economic growth and environmental protection. The debate contains China’s future more than anything else at this time.

The above discussion compels us to ask a question: where are we (China) heading? Is it going to be in the club of the USA and Australia in terms of CO2 emission or somewhere a little below than them? Taking this into consideration, the central government has recently announced a new policy of urbanization in China and a finetuned energy consumption pattern. One of the major steps that the central government’s policy accommodates is to work on building low-carbon cities. Explaining the nature of a low carbon city, Mao explains three main pillars: social equity & quality of life, economic prosperity and environmental stewardship. These aspects of a city do work on building the nature of low carbon city. “There is an expectation that the new policy of the central government will help to restructure the energy consumption pattern in China,” Mao said. Along with that, low carbon emission, efficient water producing strategies and several other means of conserving the environment are in place. The good thing all about this in China is that the local government and leaders want to make their town more environment-friendly and want to save it. “However, it is not as easy as it has been perceived,” Mao said. “There are daunting tasks to be taken care of while working on making the local towns more environment-friendly.”

What has China done so far to make it a low carbon emitter and contribute towards building a more environment-friendly country? Mao goes on untangling these questions. “China is taking more and more specific measures to work on reducing the carbon emission,” she said. “In the political front, CPC has made decisions to reduce the carbon emission while working on achieving economic growth at the same time.” However, the targets that have been set by the party are still very difficult to achieve. “It seems very unlikely to achieve the goals that the party has set for this year,” she said while elaborating the issue to the people at the hall.

There are several international standards and domestic pressures to maintain for the party in order to be a responsible force towards attaining prosperity. “China has given the major strategic position to low carbon emission by using three pillars, which are the major areas of CO2 emission. These three pillars are: land, economic activities and buildings. The central government has a detailed plan to work on it,” Mao said. The climate change issue and carbon emission is not only directly connected with the urbanization and industrialization process. Population growth also is a key component. Therefore, the central government in China also gives an emphasis to the demographic changes in the country. There is a proportionate relationship between the population increment and CO2 emission. The sources of energy demand consist of economic activities that have direct relationship with the population growth. Taking instances of energy demand, the major ones are manufacturing industry, building, agriculture and transportation. All these sources of energy demand increase together with the the population. “However, the energy consumption pattern is completely different in the cities than in villages of China,” Mao said. So, the rapid urbanization process and population growth both will trigger the CO2 emission and China might head towards the club of the USA and Australia in the near future.

Commenting on the presentation, Prof Farah said that the climate change is a global problem but it has to do a lot with the local issues of economic development and livelihood. “The major challenges for developing countries is to adopt development policies that do not harm ecological system and still could attain the desired level of economic growth and prosperity,” he said. The major concern of our time is not only helping people to overcome poverty and underdevelopment but also to ensure that our home (earth) will not be damaged in the long run, he opined. Emphasizing the importance of the climate change deal between the USA and China during the last APEC summit in Beijing, prof Farah said that the two countries have shown a great respect to the planet and also to other countries. Considering the emerging challenges of our time, the American government has also shown interest to help other countries to work on the issue of climate change. The Obama administration has clearly said that it would assist European countries to be more independent from Russian oil. “However, this has more to do with international politics than the mere issue of climate change,” said Farah. Raising the issue of shell gas usage for as one of the sources of energy, Prof Farah said that China has a lot of storage of the shell gas. “But the problem is that while using shell gas, it contaminates water sources,” he said. “Lets hope that China will be able to manage this and use shell gas without much affecting water resources.” He suggested that the governments of all countries have to adopt multidisciplinary approach to reduce the implications of climate change. “Sustainable development approach is the need of the day,” he said.

Q & A
Addressing a question about the data quantification of demand of energy and consumption, Mao said that the data is comprehensive. However, she also mentioned that it does not cover the emission of CO2 from the deforestation and losses it causes. Responding to the question about recommendation in making Chengdu a low carbon city, Mao said that the there is vast amount of shell gas, which can be used. She added, “While using shell gas there should be careful approach about the usage of water. China is going to be a hot topic from the environmental perspective as well in the future. The issue of carbon trade is also one of the compelling one. Discussing on the laws and regulations about the environmental protection in China, Mao said that there are several laws and regulations regarding environment but the issue is they are hardly implemented here. The future of China relies on how much renewable energy can be used in China for industrial purpose and in urban areas.

Report by: Bhoj Raj Poudel

December 1st,  2014

China’s Low Carbon Dream 

Supplementary Materials

IPCCs Fifth Assessment Synthesis Report
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_LONGERREPORT.pdf

Transforming New York City’s Buildings for a Low-Carbon Future
http://www.nyc.gov/html/builttolast/assets/downloads/pdf/OneCity.pdf

PlaNYC progress report 2014
http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc/downloads/pdf/140422_PlaNYCP-Report_FINAL_Web.pdf

Sustainable low-carbon city development in China
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTNEWSCHINESE/Resources/3196537-1202098669693/4635541-1335945747603/low_carbon_city_full_en.pdf

Related Posts

event #40 December 1st, 2014

Dr. Mao Ziwei 毛紫薇
Research Analyst to Energy Programme, Word Resources Institute (China)

Discussant: Paolo Farah
West Virginia University (USA), gLAWcal – Global Law Initiatives for Sustainable Development (UK)  & EPSEI Scientific Coordinator EU commission Research Project

Mao Ziwei is a research analyst to the City Program at the World Resources Institute before she joined the Energy Program. She dedicates herself to China urban energy issues, including city-level energy consumption and carbon emissions status and trend in the context of urbanization, with a deeper dive into urban sectors.  As a member of Research Center for International Energy Policy at Tsinghua University before joining WRI, her research focused on reducing sectoral carbon emissions, especially in the sectors of power and cement, by using modeling tools, like LEAP, GAMS and MATLAB. Based on her research, several academic papers have been published in English and Chinese. She developed the research interest in climate change during the visit to Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Impact for academic exchange and the study of sustainable development in Venice International University. In addition, she did some initial research in the application of LCA for the evaluation of sustainability of CDM. She used to participate in the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009, and contributed to the organization of International Youth Summit on Energy and Climate Change 2009 held in Beijing. She got the bachelor and master degrees from the School of Environment, Tsinghua University, majoring in environmental science and engineering.

This event is organized in partnership with:
gLAWcal (Global Law Initiative for Sustainable Development).

gLAWcal is an independent non-profit research organization (think tank) that aims at providing a new focus on issues related to economic law, globalization and development, namely the relationship between international economy and trade, with special attention to a number of non-trade-related values and concerns. Through research and policy analysis, gLAWcal sheds a new light on issues such as good governance, human rights, right to water, rights to food, social, economic and cultural rights, labour rights, access to knowledge, public health, social welfare, consumer interests and animal welfare, climate change, energy, environmental protection and sustainable development, product safety, food safety and security. gLAWcal is a sponsor of ThinkIN China.

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A Science Slam is a scientific talk where researchers compete to present their work in front of a non-expert audience. The slam is a way to show the engaging and fascinating side of research to the wider public.

The EURAXESS Science Slam 2014 , organized in partnership with THINKIN CHINA and UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE will take place on 6th November 2014 in Beijing. Five researchers will compete for the main prize; the audience will decide who the best is. The winner will go to Europe for science communication training and field visits.

Researchers currently based in China of all nationalities and all research fields can join. There are no age restrictions and the only academic requirement is that you need to hold a PhD or be currently enrolled in a PhD programme.

The registration for 2014 Science Slam is now closed. We are pleased to announce that the scientific jury has selected the best five videos. The five finalists are …

– AMBROSI Raymond –  From the Boxer Uprising to Cultural Resurgence- The Underground Plum Flower Boxers and the Rejuvenation of Community Life in Rural North China
– DENG Zhuo – ‘Who stole my electrons?’ – Electron Loss Process in 3rd Generation Solar Cells
– FLORES Nahiely – Numerical Models in Astrophysics
– LI Miaoyan – Bitcoin, Its Development and Risks
– WANG Yanting – A Story about Addiction

For further information check out the website: http://scienceslamchina.splashthat.com

EURAXESS Science Slam Finals 2014 Flyer

October 22nd,  2014

XIslamic Caliphate in Iraq: What Can China Do? 

Supplementary Materials

“The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World is Turning Away from the West and Rediscovering China“, Ben Simpferdorfer (April, 2009)
http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-new-silk-road-ben-simpfendorfer/?K=9780230580268

“China Sees Islamic State Inching Closer to Home” Alexa Olsen, Foreign Policy, August 11, 2014
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/11/the_islamic_state_chinese_media_hong_kong_phoenix_xinjiang

“China Created ISIS, Too” Zackary Keck, The Diplomat, September 15, 2014
http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/china-created-isis-too

“If Anyone Bombs Iraq Shouldn’t It Be China?” Gordon G. Chang, Forbes, August 15, 2014
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2014/06/15/if-anyone-bombs-iraq-shouldnt-it-be-china/

“Ma Xiaolin: Founder of First Real-Name blog Website in China” http://english.cri.cn/4026/2008/01/15/167@314463.htm

“Kerry Talks Internet Freedom with Chinese Bloggers“
By Bai Tiantian and Liu Sha (Global Times 2014-02-17)
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/842858.shtml

Related Posts

event #38 October 22th, 2014

Ma Xiaolin 马晓霖
Founder of the blog Bo Lian She 博联社

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September 15th, 2014, Bridge Cafè (Wudaokou)
Speaker: Edward Luttwak, Senior Associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Presentation

Edward N. Luttwak, prominent strategic thinker and renowned author, started his talk with a remark that made audience to smile and feel a sense of self-reflection! “Congratulations for being in the right place,” he said after an introductory speech of Francesco Sisci, a senior researcher at Renmin University in Beijing.

Luttwak, who claims that the small mistakes of intelligent people can be the sources for big historical shifts, shared frankly that he is not a China expert but he has been travelling here since a long time. The insights that Luttwak slowly started sharing were not only from his theoretical research and investigation but also came from his rich experience during his involvement in shaping history. As Sisci mentioned during the introductory session, Luttwak is a figure behind the demise of USSR.

The study of grand strategy as well as history of strategy made Luttwak to see what was going on but he could not do anything except witnessing things happening, as he said. “I was not in the policy making position,” he said. Along with his deep understanding of strategic moves in the world, Luttwak also touched upon the challenges that China is facing these days.

Highlighting the importance of China at the moment, he said that a lot of people are moving to China and a number of start-up companies are here to see if their future holds something for them in this constantly rising economic hub. “China’s constant rise in the economic front will remain growing in the foreseeable future,” he said. And consequently that will make China to act in a certain way, which might be uncomfortable for its neighbors and many other powers such as the USA. “The elevator metaphor can be very appropriate to make this clear,” Luttwak said signifying China as a fat guy entering from the third floor in the elevator and making all others to squeeze and feel uncomfortable even though the fat guy is totally gentle and non-threatening.

Going back to the history, Luttwak started talking from how the United States of America was being very aggressive to contain the USSR and did everything to make it fall down. He questioned, would the USA do that again to China. His answer is: no. Is there anything going on to contain China or block it from being powerful and economically prosper, Luttwak asks. And he continues deciphering his own question. But again, he explains that it is as simple as we could grasp. “It is kind of complicated,” he said. He goes on saying that China’s many territorial demands might be difficult to handle in the future. Similarly, China’s behavior with its neighbors such as India, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia can easily lead to anti-China coalition, in which case the USA might play. Again repeating the analogy of elevator to explain China in the region, he said, “These neighboring countries are reacting to the entrance of Mr Fat.” In this context, Luttwak says that Hillary’s global strategy and idea of pivot in Asia seems to be working if China does not start working and being very nice to its neighbors.

Taking a pause on what he was all talking about, Luttwak said, “Actually, this all is very natural.” Immediately after that, Luttwak started talking with his young audience telling them not to study strategy only. Sharing his experience, he said, “it does not allow you to just look at exchange people, flow of people from one place to another place, it does not allow you to look at poetry, at cultural exchanges, and understand how economic and sociological phenomenon work in the world.

The idea of strategy sounds that it actually takes care of everything but it does not, he said. Linking with his own experience, he said that the strategy of a country actually helps it to move in one direction and make things functioning in international relations and power politics.

Luttwak, who has written a book, “The Rise of China vs. The Logic of Strategy” claimed that China does not have any strategy so far. “But it is trying to figure out which strategy to follow in the future,” he said. “One of the main things that China has to be careful is that it has to love its small neighbors as the USA does. There is no power politics between small countries and the USA.”

Coming to the current context, Luttwak said that China is rising economically, which will continue in the future. He starts asking audience about why it might be difficult for other powers to accept China’s rise. Further he says, the international politics is about grand strategies and they are always undercurrents going on.

Luttwak’s comment on China’s traditional statecrafts in 21^st century was mainly focused on what China is trying to do now. The Chinese leadership is working hard to make sure that the strategy that they would adopt not eventually makes them out of the game. “This is the main concern at this moment,” Luttwak said.

Q&A

As China is rising, there is a tendency of perceiving it as going to establish its own hegemony in the world but that is not the case. The tributary system that is always talked about when it comes to China is also not true. There was no actual tributary system in China as one of the audience comments on Luttwak’s lecture. Luttwak responds by arguing from the ‘Tianxia’ of China. Luttwak further says that the domestic political system of China might not be acceptable for many countries including the USA. For that reason, there might be a resistance from all parts of the world when China wants to work on establishing its hegemony. For instance, China’s president Xi Jinping’s visit to India is for two reasons, one, is to strengthen the friendship and the other is to make sure that India would not tilt towards Japan and the USA. “President Xi is definitely not going to answer all the questions that Indian journalists would ask him in New Delhi,” Luttwak said. With that reference, China is in a position to make sure that its rise will be accepted in the region as well as in the world.

Further elaborating his argument, Luttwak said that the internal political movement itself is a headache for China. Most of the local level authorities are doing their jobs and they are not entrepreneurs. Dealing with small neighbors is another problem for China. We know that Burma was an ally of China before but now things have been changed. “I bet the Chinese ambassador from Burma must have been writing everyday to take care of the situation there strictly,” Luttwak said as Burma is now being more tensed due to internal political shift there. The problem here is that in strategic thinking, the great power can’t defeat small countries. What is happening now is that neighbors are reacting as response to the China’s activities and the USA is behind it not in the forefront.

Responding to the question about Sino-Japan issue, Luttwak says that we should not be worrying about the war but what might be the case is that there would be economic repercussion in the future. China does not want anything from Japan except expecting it to be more humble with China.

In regard to the question of whether China’s military is involved in its politics, Luttwak said that it does not seem lie the PLA is involved in the politics of China but there are certainly some factors that might be willing to derail the goodwill that China has with other countries. He took the reference of military incursion from China’s side in 2013 in Ladhak area at a time when premier Li was about to visit India. “That incursion was surely not as sanctioned from the Beijing,” he said.

Again, talking about the China’s maritime power and having a strategy, Luttwak argues that China is getting better in everything except in strategy. Unlike China, Russians are very good in strategic movement. President’s Xi’s maritime Silk Route, which he has been talking about, seems taking a course and he picked up Maldives to visit this time for that reason as well. “Being strategist is having friends all around the world,” Luttwak said.

Talking about US-China relationship and American strategy while China is rising, Luttwak goes saying that there would be continuation of economic exchange and trade going on between the two countries. The USA will work with Japan, India and Vietnam in order to balance the power with China but there would not be any military confrontation and nuclear power performance. Actually, the USA is using the locals as strategic tools aiming to balance China and its economic rise.

In the end, Luttwak said that the Chinese market would be important one for all countries and powers no matter what. He further said that China would continue to rise, which will make it indispensable force in the global power order. The rise of China is definitely a factor of fear for all but that is also a major reason for all to work with it.

Prepared by: Bhoj Raj Poudel

April 15th,  2014

XI’s New Look Towards the U.S

Supplementary Materials

Zhao Kejin: “China’s Foreign Poliyc 3.0: New direction of China’s Foreign Policy After the 18th Party Congress”,the Journal of Social Science (She Hui Ke Xue), Vol.7, 2013,  http://www.faobserver.com/NewsInfo.aspx?id=9119

Zheng Wang, “China’s Foreign Policy Debates”, Diplomat, Oct. 12, 2013, http://thediplomat.com/2013/10/chinas-foreign-policy-debates/

Susan E. Rice, “America’s Future in Asia”, remarks As Prepared for Delivery by National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/21/remarks-prepared-delivery-national-security-advisor-susan-e-rice

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May 20th,  2014

Closing the ranks against the West: China Russia an emerging Eurasian Pole?

Supplementary Materials

陈玉荣：习近平索契之行为发展中俄关系注入全新活力
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2014-02/06/c_126090510_2.htm
陈玉荣谈俄罗斯总统普京访华
http://www.people.com.cn/GB/32306/54155/57487/4231469.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2013-03/21/c_124486912.htm

Dmitry Medvedev: Russia’s National Development Issues (Chinese edition), co-translated,Beijing: World Affairs Press, 2008.
Ma Zhengang (ed.): The Steadily Advancing SCO, executive editor-in-chief, Beijing: World Affairs Press, 2006.

The Role of SCO in Central Asia”, in: Center for Russia and Central Asia Studies, China Foundation for International Studies (ed.): On Central Asia Regional Cooperation Mechanisms, Beijing: World Affairs Press, 2009.
“2006: The Rise of Russia’s Aggressive Diplomacy”, in: China Institute of International Studies: The CIIS Blue Book on International Situation and China’s Foreign Affairs 2006/2007, Beijing: World Affairs Press, 2007.
“China and Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation”, International Studies, No.4, 2004.
“China-Russia Relations Have Entered a New Period Featuring Maturity and Sound Development”, in: China Institute of International Studies: The CIIS Blue Book on International Situation and China’s Foreign Affairs 2009/2010, Beijing: World Affairs Press, 2010.
“An Analysis of the Prospects for Central Asia Geopolitical Structure after Russia-Georgia Conflict”, in: China Institute of International Studies: The CIIS Blue Book on International Situation and China’s Foreign Affairs 2008/2009, Beijing: World Affairs Press, 2009.

陈玉荣：《2012年俄罗斯外交》, 中国国际问题研究所著《国际形势和中国外交蓝皮书》（2013）, 世界知识出版社，2013年3月。
陈玉荣：《俄罗斯现代化外交色彩凸显》， 中国国际问题研究所著《国际形势和中国外交蓝皮书》（2010/2011），世界知识出版社，2011年5月。
陈玉荣：《中俄关系步入成熟稳健发展新时期》，中国国际问题研究所著《国际形势和中国外交蓝皮书》（2009/2010），世界知识出版社，2010年6月。
陈玉荣：《2008年：中俄关系稳步前行》，中国国际问题研究所著《国际形势和中国外交蓝皮书》第21章，世界知识出版社，2009年。
[俄]谢·拉夫罗夫：《俄罗斯外交与21世纪的挑战》，《国际生活》杂志，2012年。
[俄]伊·伊万诺夫：《俄美关系重启：策略步骤还是战略抉择？》，《国际生活》杂志，2012年。

М.Л.Титаренко, Россия и ее азиатские партнеры в глобализирующемся мире, Стратегическое сотрудничество: проблемы и перспективы，Москва ИД «ФОРУМ» 2012.
Шанхайская организация сотрудничества: от становления к всестороннему развитию
Под редакцией А.В.Лукина,Москва, МГИМО-Университет 2008.
8. Российско-китайское сотрудничество: проблемы и решения
Под редакцией А.В.Лукина,Москва МГИМО-Университет 2007.

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June 17, 2014, Bridge Café (Wudaokou)

Prof. Lin Erda, Coordinator Lead Author of WGII Report, Researcher at Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Dr. ZHU Chunquan, Country Representative, China Office, IUCN

Presentation

As the effects of climate change start crippling people’s lives in different ways in numerous parts of the world, China is an exception. The negative impacts of the climate change have already been common on crop yields in many places of China. Prof. Lin and Dr Zhu, both, emphasized on urgency of taking measures on mitigating the risk of climate change in order to avoid potential threat in areas of freshwater resources, food production and fisheries including others.

Prof. Lin, who is also one of the coordinating lead author of the WGII Report, shared internal dynamics of the report and explained how it could be understood from a layman’s lens. He mentioned that the Working Group II report has been recently released, which includes views from 1,729 different experts and total 50,492 comments. More importantly, the report incorporates 70 countries and their status on climate change effects and their adaptation strategies. He also explained that the report has come out with three phases of climate change effects, namely, hazardous, exposed and risks. “These three stages are important to understand and strategies to adapt should be designed accordingly,” Prof Lin said looking at audience in the hall.

Highlighting the effects of climate change in the short and long run, he said that there might be some consequences which are not easy to predict now. “Scientists are trying to figure out these uncertain consequences, but it is always hard to fetch clear pictures of the future,” he said. Looking at the progress that have been made in the recent report, he said that the different parts of the world might face different sorts of problems in the long run. China, in particular, also have different coastal provinces within it, which will have to bear problems that are not quite visible now. He further said that there are places in China with high level of vulnerabilities compared to others. These places will suffer more than other relatively less affected places, mainly in regard to livelihoods.

Presenting comparative analysis about the different places, Prof Lin said that the global aggregate impacts of climate change seem to be with higher risks. “Each new study detect different results of the climate change impacts in the long run,” he said. Along with that there might be some unique vulnerabilities in the global scale, which means that the adaptation strategies might not work in the field. In those situations, there should be immediate actions taken in the ground, as Prof. Lin said.

Talking about the proposed initiatives for adaptation, Prof Lin said there should be different initiatives to cope with effects in each sector. The risks in different sectors such as freshwater resources, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystem, coastal systems and low-lying areas, marine systems and food security and food production systems have to be dealt with care. The risks in fisheries and water resources have some similar problems. The scarcity of water resources is automatically hampers fisheries. Livelihoods in many areas can be threatened when water resources and fisheries are disturbed due to climate change effects.

The consequences in the food production will lead to food insecurity. As China is fast changing in all fronts, the issue of food insecurity can be more severe in the near future. Trying to mitigate the risks is only one way of tackling the problem of food insecurity. The annual harvest of crops in China in recent years haven’t deteriorated so far. “But we can see potential threats in food productions in the long run in China as well,” Prof Lin said. However, in aggregate, the negative impacts of climate change on crop yields have been common than the positive changes recently, as it seems in the assessment report, he shared.

The consequences of climate change are more striking in rural livelihoods due to insufficient access to drinking water and irrigation water and reduced agricultural productivity for farmers, as Prof Lin presented an excerpt from recent assessment report. Additionally, the risk of loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, biodiversity, ecosystem goods, functions and services they deliver for coastal livelihoods is also high. Similarly, flood and other kind of natural calamities are also seem to be happening in the coastal places as effects of climate change. These risks are yet to reach at the level of hazardous, but it’s likely to happen in the foreseeable future, as Prof Lin mentioned in his presentation.

Dr Zhu started making his remarks about adaptation policies that have been considered the government in China in recent years. “One of the most important task of dealing with climate change is working for knowledge dissemination,” he said while making his point clear. “Some progress has been made in this regard.”

Expressing his fear about the potential threats due to climate change, he said it would be very hard to make any conclusion about what might happen in the future. “The adaptation strategy should be well calculated and executable,” He added. “There must be a grounded strategy to tackle the consequences of climate change in the long run.”

Talking about the ecosystem, he mentioned about the role of local authorities in terms of changing the pattern of using resources in different levels.

Q&A

The Q&A session touched many issues such as whether knowledge dissemination process is taking place in China or not. There are farmers in different parts of China, who are not quite familiar with potential risks of climate change. Answering the question, Dr Zhu said that there was a process slowly taking place to make farmers aware of the situation and orient them to change their behavior in using chemical fertilizer for crop production. “The central as well as local governments are putting effort on creating awareness and conducting different research in small and large scales in order to find out the ways to deal with the consequences of climate change in China,” Dr Zhu said.

The farmers are definitely one who will be suffered more due to climate change. “In this regard, the responsible authorities have made effort on increasing investment to carry out research aiming to improve technology and measure how much water has been used so far,” Dr Zhu added. The local governments in different provinces are designing their action plans as their adaptation strategies.

In the end, Dr Zhu also highlighted the issue of Green GDP (gross domestic product) in China. “The government is working on accounting GDP by taking climate change effects into consideration in the long run,” he said. However, Prof Lin said that it would be difficult to make an accurate estimate about economic impacts and cost of adaptation.

During the presentation, Prof Lin borrowed some remarks from Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (OPCC) to make precise revelations of the report. “The Working Group II report is another important step forward in our understanding of how to reduce and manage the risk of climate change. Along with the reports from Working Group I and Working Group III, it provides a conceptual map of not only the essential features of the climate change but the options for solutions,” Prof Lin said quoting Pachauri.

Report by: Bhoj Raj Poudel