State of Asia Asia Society Switzerland

China’s leader Xi Jinping raised his country’s relationship with EU and NATO member Hungary to a level that puts Hungary almost as close to Beijing’s chest as Russia and North Korea are.Western Europe long regarded the ’new’ EU member states in the East as Trojan horses. But views on, and relations with, China have grown very diverse in Central and Eastern Europe. Especially in the Baltics, the Czech Republic and, increasingly, Poland, China is looked at with suspicion, given its suppor...

Indira Ranamagar is Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives of Nepal since January 2023. She started her career as a primary science and maths teacher in village schools in the southeast of Nepal, and became a social worker in prisons in 1990. For well over 30 years now, she has been a prolific human rights and social worker. In 2000, she founded the NGO Prisoner’s Assistance Nepal, which looks after prisoners' welfare and works to give children whose parents are imprisoned an educatio...

Nalin Mehta is a political scientist and journalist in Delhi, India, and author of The New BJP, a work you can only call THE book on the BJP, the largest political party in the world.Under the leadership of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP has solidified its position as the uncontested center of power in the world's most populous country.As India heads to the polls over a 6-week period beginning April 19, we talk with Nalin about how the BJP built and expanded its power bas...

There is little to dispute about Asia's rise as a key feature of our time. Already the world's most populous region, Asian countries have steadily gained in economic and political influence on the world stage in recent decades. While in the past this development has been driven heavily by China, the next few years will see countries like India, Indonesia, and Vietnam expand their international clout.As the balance of power shifts east, will the world order inevitably change? Asia is far from ...

Johan Nylander is an award-winning author and freelance China and Asia correspondent. His work is published by CNN, Forbes, Sweden’s leading business daily Dagens Industri, and many other international media outlets.His most recent book is The Wolf Economy Awakens – Mongolia’s Fight for Democracy, and a Green and Digital Future (Hong Kong University Press, 2023). It's full of original reporting and great conversations with Mongolians, from angry elderly people in the street and the lead singe...

STATE OF ASIA, the podcast from Asia Society Switzerland, is back with engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all.The new season premieres Tuesday, March 26, with a conversation with Hong Kong-based journalist and author Johan Nylander, whose latest book is a deep dive on one of Asia's largest but, for now, most unknown nations: Mongolia. New episodes follow every other Tuesday.Plus: look out for special episodes bringing you insights from some o...