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  • China’s Calculus in the Israel-Iran Conflict: A Conversation with Mona Yacoubian and Tuvia Gering
    In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Ms. Mona Yacoubian and Mr. Tuvia Gering join us to unpack the latest escalation between Israel and Iran and explore how China is navigating this evolving conflict. They begin by situating the conflict in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attack, which triggered a series of strikes by Iranian-backed militias that eventually led to direct Israel-Iran military confrontations. Ms. Yacoubian outlines how Israeli strikes were timed around a perceived window of Iranian vulnerability and rising concerns over Iran’s nuclear enrichment levels. Mr. Gering describes a significant paradigm shift in Israeli security doctrine after October 7, and the belief that Iranian threats, both nuclear and conventional, have necessitated preemptive action, especially with the current Trump administration’s backing. Ms. Yacoubian highlights the limited material support to Iran from Russia, North Korea, and China, and noted China’s preference to prioritize regional economic ties over military entanglement. Mr. Gering delves into the mixed Chinese domestic debates on Iran and explores unconfirmed reports of potential Chinese arms transfers to Iran. Finally, they assess what these developments may mean for China’s long-term role in Middle East security, including the possibility of a new security architecture that could include both Israel and Iran, and how Iran’s strategic calculations may shift amid growing isolation. Mona Yacoubian is senior adviser and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She has more than thirty years of experience working on the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on conflict analysis, governance and stabilization challenges, and conflict prevention. She was previously vice president of the Middle East and North Africa Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), where she managed field programming in Iraq, Libya, and Tunisia as well as Washington, D.C.–based staff. In 2019, she served as executive director of the congressionally appointed Syria Study Group. From 2014 to 2017, Yacoubian served as deputy assistant administrator in the Middle East Bureau at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she had responsibility for programming across Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. Captain (Res.) Tuvia Gering is a China analyst at Planet Nine, a Tel-Aviv and East Asia-based tech company, a visiting researcher at the Diane & Guilford Glazer Foundation Israel-China Policy Center at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), and a nonresident fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. Previously, he was a research fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) and the Israeli Chinese Media Center. Gering is the editor and author of Discourse Power on Substack, a newsletter covering leading Chinese perspectives on current affairs, and holds a BA in East Asian studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (summa cum laude) and an MPH in disaster and emergency management from Tel Aviv University (summa cum laude).
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  • Key Takeaways from the 2025 Shangri-La Dialogue: A Conversation with Meia Nouwens and Veerle Nouwens
    In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Ms. Meia Nouwens and Ms. Veerle Nouwens join us to discuss key takeaways from the recent 2025 IISS Shangri-La Dialogue. They start by discussing the significance of the dialogue as a high-level forum for discussion between governments on issues impacting Asian security and they highlight some of the major topics that countries repeatedly brought up throughout sessions, with cross-regional security, hybrid threats, and uncertainty in the international order as three of the most prominent. They unpack President Macron’s speech, who, they note, is the first European leader who has ever been invited to provide keynote remarks at the dialogue, and describe the emphasis he laid on Europe becoming a more active player in the Indo-Pacific region. Meia and Veerle also discuss the attendance from China’s side and point to the notable absence of Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun. They describe China’s messaging this year as less focused on the United States and instead with a greater emphasis on China’s relationships with regional partners. Similarly, they touch on the variety of current views of China they heard from regional countries during the dialogue, which ranged from viewing China as a cooperative partner, a challenger, and a competitor all to different extents. They describe U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth’s remarks and note they believe he succeeded in providing some reassurance to allies and underscored his emphasis that the U.S. can work more with partners in the region through increased forward deployment of troops, cooperation on defense industrial capabilities, and greater interoperability. Finally, Meia and Veerle describe what they heard from countries as shared challenges in the region that transcend boundaries and emphasized the consensus among many for the US and China to find ways to cooperate with each other despite their disagreements.     Ms. Meia Nouwens is a Senior Fellow for Chinese Security and Defense Policy. Meia’s expertise lies in Chinese cross-service defense analysis, China’s defense industry and innovation, as well as China’s regional strategic affairs and international relations. She leads IISS research on China’s Digital Silk Road, and was a co-lead of the China Security Project with the Mercator Institute for China Studies. Prior to commencing at IISS, she worked for the European External Action Service as a policy officer in Taipei, and as a trade analyst in the EU’s delegation to New Zealand. Meia holds a BA Hons in international relations and political science from Macquarie University, a master’s in international relations and diplomacy from Leiden University in conjunction with the Clingendael Institute, and an MPhil in modern Chinese studies from the University of Oxford and Peking University.  Ms. Veerle Nouwens is the Executive Director for IISS–Asia. Veerle’s expertise lies in Chinese foreign and defense policy, as well as the wider Indo-Pacific defense and security environment. She plays a key part in organizing the annual IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, provides intellectual direction for IISS research on the Asia-Pacific, and works to enhance the profile of IISS across the region and beyond. Prior to joining the IISS, Veerle worked as Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, where she established the Indo-Pacific Programme and focused on China and Indo-Pacific security, and as a policy officer in the political section of the European Union Delegation in Singapore. Veerle holds a BA Hons in international relations and political science from Macquarie University, a Master’s in international relations and diplomacy from Leiden University in conjunction with the Clingendael Institute, an MPhil in modern Chinese studies from the University of Oxford and Peking University, and has attended a Mandarin semester programme at Tsinghua University.
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  • The Case for a Pacific Defense Pact: A Conversation with Dr. Ely Ratner
    In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Ely Ratner joins us to discuss the case for a defense pact in the Indo-Pacific. Dr. Ratner starts by laying out his argument of why he thinks now is the right time for this type of agreement, discussing that the pact may serve to help maintain stability and deterrence in the region amidst China’s aggressive ambitions to reshape the global order. Dr. Ratner discusses the four countries, U.S., Japan, Australia, and the Philippines, that he believes the pact will include to start with and what their responsibilities will be within the pact. He shares that he envisions one of the main features of this partnership to be greater military integration among its members and to serve as a framework to garner the collective power of US allies and partners through a multilateral collective security agreement. Dr. Ratner discusses the viability of the pact and the reasons he thinks there are more opportunities for the pact to be successful now than there was in the past, including greater strategic alignment among the four partner countries, increased intra-Asian cooperation, and the growing reciprocity in U.S. alliances themselves. Dr. Ratner also considers how these different countries may respond to the idea of this pact, especially considering China may react badly to it. He underscores that Beijing is likely to behave badly regardless of this pact and states countries should not turn away from it because of Beijing. Finally, Dr. Ratner underscores how this pact would not require the U.S. to extend new commitments abroad and describes the continuing will and desire he sees from the Trump Administration to continue cooperation and strengthening of alliances in the region. Dr. Ely Ratner is a Principal at The Marathon Initiative, a bipartisan think tank dedicated to preparing the United States for an era of sustained great power competition. He served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs from 2021-2025. Prior to confirmation, he was the Director of the DoD China Task Force and a Senior Advisor to China to the Secretary of Defense. Before arriving at the Department of Defense, Dr. Ratner was the Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where he was a member of the executive team and responsible for managing the Center’s research agenda and staff. Dr. Ratner served from 2015 to 2017 as the Deputy National Security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, and from 2011 to 2012 in the office of Chinese and Mongolian affairs at the State Department. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
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  • The Influence of Xi Jinping’s Father, Xi Zhongxun: A Conversation with Dr. Joseph Torigian
    In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Joseph Torigian joins us to discuss his newly released book The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian describes the life and struggle of Xi Zhongxun as a party official during the Cultural revolution and specifically the impact he had on the life and political views of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Dr. Torigian notes that his book utilizes the story of Xi Zhongxun’s life as a lens to better understand how the Party works and why both Xi Zhongxun and Xi Jinping believe certain values, such as those of sacrifice and suffering for the greater good, are highly important. He describes how Xi Jinping was viewed positively by his father due to the idea that his son had “eaten more bitterness” than other children, even going as far as to state that Xi Jinping had “the makings of a premier.” Dr. Torigian describes how deeply involved Xi Zhongxun was during his time in the party on the United Front, ethnic policy in Tibet and Xinjiang, and policy towards Taiwan, and how, because of his father’s dedication to these issues, Xi Jinping views them as personal unfinished business. Finally, Dr. Torigian describes how Xi Zhongxun’s influence on his son has left Xi Jinping with a Hobbesian view of the world and with the idea that the Party is the best tool for helping China assert its rightful place in the world and secure its inevitable march towards greatness. Dr. Torigian is a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover History Lab, an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, and a center associate of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. Previously, he was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton-Harvard’s China and the World Program, a Postdoctoral (and Predoctoral) Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), a Predoctoral Fellow at George Washington University’s Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, an IREX scholar affiliated with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, a Fulbright Scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai, and a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. His research has also been supported by the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, MIT’s Center for International Studies, MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, the Critical Language Scholarship program, and FLAS.
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  • Europe’s Balancing Act with China: A Conversation with Janka Oertel
    In this episode of the ChinaPower podcast, Dr. Janka Oertel joins us to discuss the evolving relationship between Europe and China, and how Europe views both economic ties and security challenges posed by Beijing. She argues that China is not engaging in a successful charm offensive. Dr. Oertel describes how both the first and second Trump administration have shaped economic and security dynamics within the China-Europe relationship and outlines how Europe-China relations have become increasingly strained by competitive economic pressures imposed by China, such as issues with overcapacity, as well as how China’s support for Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has undermined the relationship. She also examines Europe’s internal responses to pressures coming from China and Europe’s active attempts at economic diversification, defense buildup and strategic autonomy, and global outreach to partners and allies. Lastly, she elaborates on areas of potential greater collaboration between the EU and the Indo-Pacific as well as avenues for the U.S. and Europe to continue working together to address dual security and economic challenges posed by China. Dr. Janka Oertel is the director of Asia Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Her expertise focuses on transatlantic China policy, emerging technologies, Chinese foreign and security policies, and security issues in Asia. Previously, she worked as a senior fellow in the Asia programme at the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a programme director at Körber Foundation’s Berlin office, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP Berlin) and a Carlo-Schmid fellow at United Nations Headquarters, New York. She has testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the German Bundestag, and is frequently quoted in leading media outlets such as the Financial Times, the New York Times, The Economist, Süddeutsche Zeitung, El Confidencial, Berlingske, and many more. She holds a PhD from the University of Jena in Germany.
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