Sea of Change Angela Köckritz and Qin Liwen

In this episode we take a deep dive into the contradictions of the Chinese economy - and what made it so successful in the first place. Is the Chinese miracle - or rather as our distinguished guest Xu Chenggang likes to call it - the Chinese riddle going to continue or has its meteoric rise already peaked? We examine Xi Jingping´s economic policy, try to distinguish real from fake growth figures and seek to find out why the island of Hainan seeks to attract investors by pledging to "arrest less entrepreneurs".



Not only does Xu Chenggang share his vast knowledge with us - his creative analysis and sense of humor make this episode a real treat.



Xu Chenggang is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on China's Economic and Institutions, and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor, Department of Finance, Imperial College London



Sound Editor: José Martins

For many years, the West had great hopes on China. That market economy would eventually lead to democracy or at least a liberalization. But even as these hopes did not materialize, a West in nearly constant crisis was grateful for a Chinese government that other than the Russian one did not exploit its weaknesses, but rather stabilized the system. In the recent past however disillusionment set it. The US and Europe started to realize that not only was Beijing not willing to play by the rules once set by the West – but that it pursues ambitions that threaten the very existence of the system.



In this Episode we talk to British analyst Andrew Small about this process of waking up, about how hopes for a certain kind of globalization were shattered. About Beijing s efforts for alliance building – and Emmanuel Macron.



Andrew Small is a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund s Indo-Pacific Program which he established in 2006. He recently published The Rupture: China and the Global Race for the Future/No Limits: the Inside Story of China's War with the West, which was named one of the 2022 Financial Times' Books of the Year.



Sound Editor for this episode is Aaditya Surve and Parichay Talreja.

Recently there has been talk about "a New Cold War". Is this exaggerated - or are we already in it? In this episode we discuss with Chinese expert Da Wei about some contentious issues. Is the worsening of relations between China and the West inevitable? Is the US a declining power? What has Beijing learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, especially with regard to its relation with Taiwan?



Da Wei is the Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University, and Professor at the Department of International Relations, School of Social Science of Tsinghua. His expertise covers China-US Relations and US Security & Foreign Policy.



He was a visiting Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States from 2006 to 2007, and a visiting Senior Associate at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University from 2008 to 2009

Taiwan Trilogy 2023



The Chinese government has been launching a highly sophisticated and intensive disinformation campaign through a plethora of channels - trying to influence Taiwanese voters and raise doubts about American assistance. In the last episode of Sea of Change Podcast’s Taiwan Trilogy, we talked with Professor Puma Shen on his study on these issues. He shared with us his fascinating discoveries and explained to us why the mafia in Taiwan is less of a threat to the island’s security than the social media influencers paid by Beijing.



Puma Shen is an associate professor at National Taipei University，chairperson of Doublethink Lab and founder of Kuma Academy. He is also vice president of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR), focusing heavily on disinformation and local trafficking of privacy violations. He was a lawyer, and an expert on white-collar crime, including state crime, disinformation campaigns, and financial crime.



The sound editor for this episode is Yu Ge.

Taiwan Trilogy 2023



It has been more than one year that Russia invaded Ukraine - and in Taiwan citizens, analysts and politicians ponder upon which lessons Taiwan can learn from it. Is there any way that a Chinese invasion could be avoided? What could be the most likely war strategy taken by China? How can Taiwan deal with it? Is China's grey zone warfare dividing Taiwanese society? Can Taiwan rely on the US and other allies?



In the second part of our Taiwan Trilogy, Sea of Change Podcast invited Professor Lai I-Chung to share his views and analysis on these crucial topics. Professor Lai is the President of Prospect Foundation of Taiwan. He was also a seasoned diplomat working for the Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the ruling party of Taiwan, and Taiwan. He represented the DPP in the United States and worked as the Chief of Staff for Taiwan Representative Office to Japan (TECRO). Both countries are major allies of Taiwan. He was also the Director General for the Department of China Affairs as well as for the Department of International Affairs for the DPP.



The sound editor of this episode is Yu Ge.

Taiwan Trilogy 2023



With the Russian invasion of Ukraine a lot of international attention has been shifting to Taiwan – will China eventually attack the island? The Communist Party of China has been vowing to take over Taiwan since 1949. For a long time this promise sounded rather hollow, as the People’s Liberation Army did not have the capacity for such a daunting venture, but with the massive upgrading of the Chinese military such a move could be more and more likely.



As the China Taiwan conflict is so crucial to the Indo-Pacific arena and to world peace at large we decided to dedicate a three part series to it. We will talk with Taiwanese experts about how an attack on Taiwan could look like. What Taiwan could do to defend itself and why it disagrees on this question with US military experts. We will discuss how China uses psychological and information warfare to influence public opinion and the political decision making process in Taiwan. And how Taiwanese civil society and the government try to enhance the resilience of their democracy.



In our first part we talk to the journalist and military expert Paul Huang, who is currently Research Fellow at Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation. 



This episode's sound editor is Yu Ge.