The Belt and Road Podcast

• Sino-Zambian Relations with Justin Haruyama

  Justin Haruyama joins Juliet, Erik, and Sisi (welcome to our new team member/producer!) to talk about China-Zambia relations, from the history of Chinese aid in Zambia to the complex people-to-people relations that characterize this bilateral relationship.Justin Haruyama is an instructor of anthropology at The University of British Columbia whose research explores diverse forms of relationality enabled by Chinese-African encounters, ranging from intimacy and fellowship, to exclusion and xenophobia, to mutual dependence and obligation. He is currently working on a book entitled Mining for Coal and Souls: Modes of Relationality in Emerging Chinese-Zambian Worlds that examines the controversial presence of Chinese migrants and investors in Zambia today. Articles:Justin Haruyama, "'South-South' Capitalist Extractive Patriarchy" in Transforming Anthropology (2025)Justin Haruyama, "Jehovah's Witnesses Are Learning Chinese to Evangelize in Zambia" in Anthropology News (2025)Justin Haruyama, "Shortcut English: Pidgin Language, Racialization, and Symbolic Economies at a Chinese-Operated Mine in Zambia" in African Studies Review (2023)Recommendations:Justin:Sapiens Podcast (Justin's episode comes out in May!)Mingwei Huang, Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century (Duke University Press, 2024)Di Wu, Affective Ecounters: Everyday Life among Chinese Migrants in Zambia (Routledge, 2021)Erik:The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024)I'm Still Here (2024)Sisi:Jemima Pierce, The Predicament of Blackness: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race (University of Chicago Press, 2013)Juliet:Get on BlueSky!Northwestern University's 2023 commencement speech by Illinois governor JB Pritzker

  --------  

  51:45
• The Latercomer’s Rise and the Globalization of Chinese Development Finance with Muyang Chen

  Muyang Chen joins Erik and Keren to talk all things Chinese development finance, including her recent book, The Latecomer's Rise: Policy Banks and the Globalization of China's Development Finance (2024).Muyang Chen is an Assistant Professor of International Development at Peking University's School of International Studies. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of development, political economy, and international relations. She has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy at George Washington University, a visiting scholar at Japan's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, and a pre-doctoral fellow at the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University. Recommendations:Muyang:"Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective" by Alexander Gerschenkron (1962)Keren:"雍正王朝 The Era of Emperor Yongzheng" (drama series, can watch on YouTube)Erik:Great Photo, Lovely Life (2023)

  --------  

  42:19
• China’s Complex Presence in Southeast Asia: Tourism, Organized Crime, Geopolitical Tensions

  Enze Han joins Juliet and Keren to discuss all things China in Southeast Asia, from migration to tourism to pig butchering scams, and much more. Enze Han is Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include the international relations of East Asia, China's relations with Southeast Asia, Southeast Asian politics, and ethnic politics in China. Professor Han received a Ph.D in Political Science from the George Washington University. He is the author of The Ripple Effect: China's Complex Presence in Southeast Asia (2024).Recommendations:Enze:Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World by Roger Crowley (2024)Keren: 米拉蒂 (Milati) by Yan Geling (2023).Juliet:Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences. The Economist (2023).Ezra Klein: The Deep Conflict Between Our Work and Parenting IdealsYou're Wrong About: The Tradwife Rises

  --------  

  52:38
• Infrastructure States and Cycling Along the China-Laos Railroad with Jess DiCarlo

  Jess DiCarlo joins Juliet and Keren for a dynamic discussion about China's identity as an infrastructural state, the myth of the debt trap narrative, cycling as method (and Jess's experience biking along the China-Laos train route), the impact of the BRI in Laos, and much more.  Dr. Jess DiCarlo is an assistant professor in Geography, Environment, and Asian Studies at the University of Utah. She has been a Wilson China Fellow, a Public Intellectual Program Fellow of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and the Chevalier Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Transportation and Development in China at the University of British Columbia's Institute of Asian Research in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Colorado Boulder and a masters in development studies from the University of California Berkeley. Her research focuses on China, its borderlands, infrastructure, issues at the environment-society nexus, and China's global integration. DiCarlo is on the editorial board of The People’s Map of Global China (the launch of which we covered on this show) and its related Global China Pulse journal, and the co-founder of the Second Cold War Observatory and co-host of its podcast, The Roundtable podcast.Recommendations:Jess:Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China by Jesse Rodenbiker Juliet:The Three Body Problem series on Netflix, adapted from the trilogy by Cixin LiuKeren:Peter Hessler's writings, specifically River Town, Oracle Bones, Country Driving

  --------  

  48:33
• Ocean Consciousness and the Maritime Silk Road with Tabitha Grace Mallory and Andrew Chubb

  Tabitha Grace Mallory and Andrew Chubb visit the Belt and Road Podcast to chat about China's ocean economy, maritime activities, and the role of concepts like ocean consciousness.  Dr. Tabitha Grace Mallory is CEO of the consulting firm China Ocean Institute, and an affiliate faculty member of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Tabitha specializes in Chinese foreign and environmental policy and researches China and global ocean governance. She has consulted for the UN, WWF, the World Bank, and the OECD, she serves on the board of directors of the China Club of Seattle, and is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the Washington State China Relations Council.Andrew is a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. His work examines the linkages between Chinese domestic politics and international relations, and more broadly he looks at maritime and territorial disputes, strategic communication, political propaganda, and Chinese Communist Party history. Andrew is the author of Chinese Nationalism and the Gray Zone: Case Analyses of Public Opinion and PRC Foreign Policy and the PRC Overseas Political Activities: Risk, Reaction and the Case of Australia.Recommendations:Andrew:Haver, Zoe; China Maritime Report No. 12: Sansha City in China's South China Sea Strategy: Building a System of Administrative Control (2021)Tabitha:The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch (2021)The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development by Shiping Tang (2022)Erik:Japan; specifically, record shopping in JapanBM-01 recordJuliet:Rodenbiker, Jesse; Global China in the American heartland: Chinese investment, populist coalitions, and the new red scare (2024)

  --------  

  58:24

More Science podcasts

Trending Science podcasts

About The Belt and Road Podcast