Sinostan: Raffaello Pantucci on China's inadvertent empire in Central Asia

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2023

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Raffaello Pantucci, co-author of the 2022 book Sinostan: China's Inadvertent Empire, which examines China's presence in Central Asia. Based on extensive travel and interviews undertaken both before and after the tragic murder of his co-author, Alexandros Petersen, in 2014, the book is a highly readable if difficult to categorize melange of analysis and anecdote, history and travelogue, and it paints a complex portrait of China's extensive efforts to build out a network of commercial and cultural ties throughout the pivotal region.

3:48 – Remembering the late Alexandros Petersen

9:35 – Xinjiang’s importance in Beijing’s Central Asia policy

13:36 – Central Asian states’ reactions to Xinjiang internment camps

24:39 – Assessing China’s soft power in Central Asia

37:10 – BRI: strategic calculus or ad-hoc scramble?

43:32 – Evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

49:45 – China’s characterization of terrorism

54:45 – The SCO today and China’s growing security footprint

1:03:03 – China in Afghanistan

1:10:36 – Current status of the BRI

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Raffaello: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan; The Geographical Pivot of History by Halford Mackinder

Kaiser: Volt Rush by Henry Sanderson

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Transcript

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