This week on Sinica, I chat with Dave Kang (USC), Zenobia Chan (Georgetown), and Jackie Wong (American University in Sharjah, UAE) about their new paper in International Security titled "What Does China Want?" The paper, which has generated quite a bit of controversy, takes a data-driven approach to examine the claim that China seeks global hegemony — that it wants to supplant the U.S. as a globe-spanning top power.
7:10 – Behind “What does China want?”
14:00 – Gaps in the literature
18:06 – Methodology of the paper
23:26 – Temporary crises vs. enduring themes
26:33 – Will China seek hegemony?
30:01 – Linguistic distinctions in shaping Chinese culture
35:28 – Ideological constraint vs. strategic flexibility
41:15 – Historic vs. modern commitments
46:25 – China and Taiwan's territorial claims
53:24 – China's tech self-sufficiency and regional One-China consensus
59:55 – Vietnam-China dispute resolution and BRI's limited geopolitical impact
1:07:56 – China-Taiwan compellence and limits of IR theories
1:14:35 - U.S.-China security dilemma and indicators of China’s revisionist ambitions
Paying It Forward:
Dave: Yuji Idomoto at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy
Jackie: Alex Lin at the University of British Columbia, Ronan Fu at Academia Sinica
Zenobia: Noel Foster at the U.S. Naval War College
Recommendations:
Dave: K-pop Demon Hunter (Netflix show)
Jackie: Better Late Than Single (Netflix show)
Zenobia: Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World by Kathryn Hughes
Kaiser: America Against China Against America by Jasmine Sun
