Straight from Brussels, a show that brings you interviews with experts and practitioners involved in EU-China relations and covers the top EU-China news!***Visit 🇪🇺euchinahub.com🇨🇳 for more EU-China materials!
Dear EU-China Watchers!
In case you missed the announcement sent via our newsletter and social media, we are pausing the release of new content in November.
We decided to do so, as we are preparing for a new and exciting announcement, so stay tuned for the big news- coming by the end of the month!
Thanks and stay safe!
In this week's briefing, we cover:
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In this week's briefing, we cover:
For a written version, visit: euchinahub.com
In this week's briefing, we cover:
For a written version, visit: euchinahub.com
In this week's briefing, we cover:
For a written version visit: euchinahub.com
In this week's briefing, we cover:
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Here comes this week's briefing:
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In this week's briefing, we cover:
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OUR TOPIC
In today’s episode, we discuss ways in which geopolitics increasingly affects global connectivity, how China’s connectivity proposal compares to that of the EU, and what should the EU do in the context of connectivity becoming a battleground for Sino-American rivalry. It is through this lens that we will take a look at the Central and Eastern Europe (including the EU’s Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood) to see how those dynamics play out in practice.
OUR GUEST
Jakub Jakóbowski in the Coordinator of the Connectivity in Eurasia Project, as well as a Senior Fellow at the China Programme in the Centre for Eastern Studies, a public think-tank based in Warsaw. He specializes in China's international political economy, as well as CEE-China and EU-China relations. We highly recommend his report 'The Silk Railroad. The EU-China rail connections: background, actors, interests' as well as his publications on the China-CEE 17+1 format.
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In this briefing we cover:
For written version: euchinahub.com
In this week's briefing, we cover:
For a written version visit: euchinahub.com
It's good to be back after the summer break!
In this week's briefing, we cover:
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In this week's briefing we cover:
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Our team is starting a holiday break - we will return with the next briefing on August 31.
In this week's episode we cover:
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In this week's briefing we cover:
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In this week's briefing, we cover:
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In today’s episode, we discuss EU’s diversification of supply chains, the idea of change-through-trade and the new buzzword that you can hear all over Brussels - the open strategic autonomy. All this sheds some light on topics that can we expect to come up in EU discussions on China in the coming months.
Iuliu Winkler is an MEP from EPP Group, the Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, within which he is the rapporteur on China, and also a member of the EP’s delegation for relations with the PRC. Prior to becoming an MEP, Mr. Winkler was Communications Minister as well as Minister-Delegate for Trade (Head of Foreign Trade Department) in Romania.
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In this week's EU-China Briefing, we cover:
For a written format visit: euchinahub.com
In this week's briefing, we cover:
For written version visit: euchinahub.com
In this week's briefing, we cover:
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In today’s episode, we take a look at relations between Sweden and China, which say a lot about the challenge of balancing values and interests in China policy. We discuss a number of topics, such as the detainment of the Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, Sweden’s 2019 China strategy, and the costs of political fallout with China. All of this in order to draw lessons for the EU and other member states of the block on how to handle systemic rivalry with China.
Björn Jerdén is the Head of Asia Programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, where he focuses his research on China and frequently comments on Sino-Swedish relations. He has been a visiting fellow at National Chengchi University, National Taiwan University, and Harvard University. We recommend that you read his recent publications: “Sweden: Not quite friends in need with China amid the COVID-19 crisis” and “China’s propaganda campaign in Sweden, 2018–2019”, links to which you can find on our website: euchinahub.com
In this special briefing we cover:
Written version at: euchinahub.com
In this episode, we take a look at Hungary’s China policy and some of the key projects of Sino-Hungarian relations, including the controversial Belgrade-Budapest railway. But we also tackle some wider questions, such as whether Hungary’s China policy is driven primarily by national interest or the personal vision of its prime minister.
Tamás Matura is the Founder of the Central and Eastern European Center for Asian Studies, a permanent Assistant Professor of Corvinus University of Budapest, and a founding member of the European Think Tank Network on China. He has worked as a research fellow of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and served as an adviser on China to the Minister of National Economy, as an editor of the China Strategy of Hungary, and as an author of the BRICS Strategy of Hungary.
In this week's briefing, we cover:
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In today’s episode, we look at the business environment in China and the current standing of European businesses in the Chinese market. We will cover the Business Confidence Survey recently released by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. But we will go well beyond that, so stay tuned to hear about the impact of COVID-19 on European businesses in China, progress on the Comprehensive Agreement on Investments, and what we can expect from the economic policies that came out of the Two Sessions. We will discuss this with a guest who is in the middle of it all.
Charlotte Roule is Vice President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, a member of the Jinan Mayor’s International Economic Consultation Committee, and an external trade advisor for the French Government.
In this briefing we cover:
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In this week's briefing we cover:
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In this week's briefing we cover:
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In today’s episode, we take a look at the 17+1 China-Central and Eastern Europe cooperation, evaluate its political and economic substance, and investigate how it ties into wider EU-China relations.
Ivana Karásková is a China Research Fellow and a Project Coordinator at the Prague-based Association for International Affairs (AMO) and the coordinator of the China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe (CHOICE), a collaborative international platform bringing together China experts from 17 CEE countries. She also coordinates MapInfluenCE project aimed at tracking China’s influence in Central Europe, specifically Czechia, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. Recently she led a group of 10 researchers from Central and Eastern and European countries to carry out an audit of 17+1 and evaluate how active or inactive the framework really is. The audit resulted in a report under a telling title “Empty shell no more: China’s growing footprint in Central and Eastern Europe”. You can find it on our website.
In this week's News Brief we cover:
In this week's News Brief we cover:
In this week's News Brief we cover:
In this News Brief we cover:
In today’s episode, we discuss the growing role of China in setting global technical standards and clear up this vital, highly technical topic. This tool for globalisation and market unification is increasingly becoming a stage for geopolitical competition within which both China and the EU are important actors.
Tim Rühlig is definitely the right person to set things straight and explain all the complexities involved. He is a Research Fellow at The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, where he focuses on China’s industrial and economic policies, and their impact on Europe - in this context, he also researches technical standardisation. He is a member of the China Task Force of the European standardisation organisations CEN and CENELEC, and provides expertise on technical standards to many organisations, including the European Commission. Previously, he worked as a research associate at the Cluster of Excellence “Formation of Normative Orders” in Frankfurt.
To read Tim's report, which we discuss, click here.
Audio editing in cooperation with Sofia Biasin
In this news brief we cover:
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In today’s episode, we investigate the complexities of Sino-Italian relations, which over the last few weeks—like a focusing lens—brought together many interesting topics: the outbreak of COVID-19, China’s disinformation campaigns, Euroscepticism, and wider discussions on EU solidarity. There’s really a lot to unpack here. Fortunately, we are joined by an expert in the field.
Lucrezia Poggetti is an Analyst at the Berlin-based MERICS, a leading European think tank focused on China. She researches EU-China relations and China’s public diplomacy strategies in Europe, and also has experience working on China’s domestic policies at the EU Delegation to the PRC.
Her works have been widely published by, among others: The Diplomat, China File, Project Syndicate, Il Sole 24 Ore, and the Berlin Policy Journal. Being Italian, she frequently comments on Sino-Italian relations and can help us shed light on the rapidly changing dynamics of Italian-Chinese interactions.
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Photo credit: ©MERICS/Marco Urban
In this news brief we cover:
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We will discuss it with our guest, who has long been involved in a discussion on China’s presence in the Central and Eastern Europe - as a think tank expert and an academic, who knows Czech-China relations inside out and warned of the possible fallout in the relations before it happened.
He is the programme director at an independent think tank the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, an assistant professor at Mendel University in Brno and a Key Researcher at Palacky University in Olomouc, where he develops an EU-funded project Sinophone Borderlands. He also actively participates in numerous networks focused on EU-China affairs such as European Think Tank Network on China (ETNC), China in Europe Research Network (CHERN), or Chinese Observers in Central Europe (CHOICE). I am very happy to be talking to Richard Turcsanyi.
Our guest is a veteran China-watcher and an MEP, who has served at the European Parliament for over a decade representing the German Green Party. He is the Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China and a Member of the European Parliament’s Delegation to the United States, but he wears many more hats - including that of a member of the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum.
Put simply, there’s no one better positioned to comment on shaping EU’s unity towards China, especially ahead of the upcoming German Presidency and Leipzig Summit. It is my great pleasure to talk to Reinhard Bütikofer.
In today’s news we cover:
Enjoy & Stay Safe!
In today’s episode, we look at Central Europe - particularly at Poland and Hungary - to explore the EU-China relations in this region. We will take a wider geostrategic perspective, which involves also the United States and Russia and naturally, we will talk about 17+1 and clashes of interests in the region. But keep listening also to learn about the perspective of the two countries which are active actors pursuing their own interests.
Our guest today is a man of many talents - Polish sinologist, who calls Hungary his second home and researches European integration. He is the Director of the Center for Europe at the University of Warsaw and a lifelong diplomat, who served as an Ambassador on multiple posts in Asia and as a chief of policy cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Author of many books and publications on the EU, China, and Hungary, he has a unique insight into Polish and Hungarian perspectives on EU-China relations and wider global power shifts. It is my great pleasure to talk to Bogdan Góralczyk.
In todays news we cover:
Our guest today is a former European Commission’s Director responsible for international affairs in DG Enterprise (now DG GROW) and a Senior Advisor at the EU-Asia Centre think tank in Brussels. In his work, he co-shaped EU-China economic relations, which he is continuing to study as a Research Associate at the University of Oxford China Centre. As a UK citizen and accomplished EU official, he is uniquely positioned to assess the impact of Brexit on EU-China relations both in economic and institutional terms. It is my great pleasure to welcome John Farnell, who is joining us remotely from Oxford.
In todays news we cover:
Jacob Gunter is the Policy and Communications Manager at the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and lead pen of their recent report on the involvement of European companies in the Belt and Road Initiative - "The Road Less Travelled". He has spent over eight years in China living as a student and professional in Yuyao in Zhejiang province, in Nanjing where he studied at the prestigious Hopkins–Nanjing Center, and currently in Beijing. As he told me himself, he is globalization in practice - an American, working in China for the European Union.
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In this two-part episode, we dive deep into the topic of the EU’s engagement with China’s Belt and Road Initiative - are the European companies involved in BRI? Does the EU’s Connectivity Strategy support European businesses? What about China promoting its standards through BRI projects?
We tackle this questions with Jacob Gunter the Policy and Communications Manager at the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and lead pen of their recent report on the involvement of European companies in the Belt and Road Initiative - "The Road Less Travelled". He has spent over eight years in China living as a student and professional in Yuyao in Zhejiang province, in Nanjing where he studied at the prestigious Hopkins–Nanjing Center, and currently in Beijing. As he told me himself, he is globalization in practice - an American, working in China for the European Union.
In todays news we cover:
Our guest is Justyna Szczudlik, who is the Head of the Asia-Pacific Programme and a China analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM). She recently co-authored and published a report on the EU-China paradiplomacy - following a three year long study on the topic. Her research interests also involve China-Central and Eastern Europe and Sino-Polish relations, so check her work especially if you are a fan of 17+1 debates.
Be sure to check out the report “The Subnational Dimensions of EU China relations” released by PISM in cooperation with experts from the University of Lodz in Poland. The report is available for free online and you can find a link to it on our website - click here
In this episode, we take a look at the big picture and take a geopolitical perspective to tackle a question - how has the narrative of EU-China relations been changing in the last years?
Our guest - Shada Islam - is the Director of Europe and Geopolitics at Friends of Europe think tank and a visiting professor at the College of Europe.She has been identified as one of the most influential women in Brussels by Politico. Long time proponent of European engagement with Asia, she is working to facilitate a space for dialogue among policymakers, experts, and business people for open discussions on EU-China – and EU-Asia - relations.
*Link to the report mentioned in the intro is available in a transcript of this episode at: euchinahub.com *
In todays news we cover:
In todays news we cover:
Also, as the Chinese New Year is fast approaching we would like to extend our best wishes to our listeners! 我们祝大家新年快乐!鼠年大吉!
Links available in transcript of the episode at: www.euchinahub.com
EU-China News Brief for Monday, January 13th 2020.
In todays news we cover:
Links in transcript of the episode at: euchinahub.com
This short episode introduces the EU-China Podcast and the idea behind its creation. We invite all the first-time listeners to check it out!