China Science

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most ambitious infrastructure project ever undertaken, and will ultimately result in more than one trillion dollars of investment by the time it is finished. The initiative is breathtaking in its scope and scale, with scores of countries participating and dozens of massive dams, railways, roads, and power projects transforming the landscape throughout the developing world.

What can the massive protests that have roiled Hong Kong and the harsh repressive moves made against activists tell us about where this special metropolis is heading? And about how a resurgent China under strongman rule is challenging and reshaping the international order? Jeffrey Wasserstrom draws on his many visits to the city and his background as a specialist in the history of protests against authoritarianism to make a powerful and sobering case for the near inevitability of China’s imposing its model on Hong Kong.

In deze serie colleges over "Oosterse filosofie" nemen filosofen en deskundigen u mee naar verschillende filosofische en spirituele tradities in India, China, Tibet en Japan: hindoeïsme, (zen)boeddhisme, confucianisme en taoïsme, waarbij het "denken vanuit het hart" een grote rol speelt. Zowel de oude als de moderne tradities komen aan bod. De serie wordt afgerond met een college comparatieve filosofie oost-west, waarin wordt stilgestaan bij de overeenkomsten en verschillen en het belang van de dialoog tussen de verscheidene wereldbeschouwingen.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Nathan Law has experienced first-hand the shocking speed with which our freedom can be taken away from us, as an elected politician arrested simply for speaking his mind. He remembers what it is like to lack freedom - and his father's precarious three-day escape from China in a small rowing boat. In this passionate rallying cry, Law argues that we must defend our freedom now or face losing it for ever.

In The Great Great Wall, architectural historian and critic Ian Volner takes a deep dive into the story of Donald Trump’s wall. Volner follows the conception, selling, design, and construction (or lack thereof) of this expensive and consequential barrier, giving listeners a detailed description of what’s happening in Washington, DC - and along the border. He also travels far afield, to China, the Middle East, northern England, and back to our border to examine the barriers we’ve been building for centuries.

One by one, Tahir Hamut Izgil's friends disappeared. The Chinese government's brutal persecution of the Uyghur people had continued for years, but in 2017 it assumed a terrifying new scale. The Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority group in western China, were experiencing an echo of the worst horrors of the twentieth century. Over a million people have vanished into China's internment camps for Muslim minorities. Waiting to Be Arrested at Night is the story of the political, social, and cultural destruction of Tahir Hamut Izgil's homeland.

"Having known and observed Jeremy for almost half a century, I have no doubt that his influence has been as great as that of all but the most senior figures in government. In his second book, Jeremy continues the recounting of his life's work, which he began in his early volume, Every Man Should Try. Jeremy has devoted his life to conflict resolution and to ending the nuclear arms race." - From the preface by Morton H. Halperin, Director of the Policy Planning Staff, Department of State (1998-2001)

Kai-Fu Lee: China, USA und die künstliche Intelligenz. Wer wissen will, wie sich in der Welt die Gewichte verschieben, muss sich die Künstliche-Intelligenz-Industrie (AI-Industrie) anschauen. Kai-Fu Lee, Ex-Google-China-CEO, milliardenschwerer Start-up-Investor und einer der weltweit renommiertesten AI-Experten, bietet in seinem Buch erstmals die chinesisch-amerikanische Perspektive. Er berichtet aus erster Hand: wie die Business-Kulturen aufeinanderprallen, warum die Silicon-Valley- Strategien in China scheitern mussten, wie ein chinesisches Google (Baidu).

Nach 40 Jahren enthüllt die chinesische Regierung ihre unglaubliche Entdeckung. Die Reptilien-Expertin CJ Cameron wird nach China eingeladen. Sie soll den größten Zoo, der jemals gebaut wurde, begutachten. Und sie darf sie mit eigenen Augen sehen: gewaltige, Feuer speiende Drachen. Es gibt diese Fabelwesen wirklich.

Kampfjets über Taiwan, Kriegsschiffe in japanischen Gewässern, Militärbasen auf den Spratly-Inseln. China will sein Territorium im Ost- und Südchinesischen Meer ausweiten. Dabei ist besonders der Anspruch auf Taiwan explosiv, das China nicht als souveränen Staat anerkennt. Doch hinter Taiwan stehen die USA. Der aktuelle Konflikt um Inseln und Riffe vor Chinas Küste wird im Westen oft vernachlässigt. Doch dahinter stehen handfeste Territorialkonflikte mit einer Reihe von Staaten wie Japan, Südkorea oder Vietnam.

Fear swept Zhenjiang as British soldiers gathered outside the city walls in the summer of 1842. Already suspicious of foreigners, locals had also heard of the suffering the British inflicted two months earlier, in Zhapu. A wave of suicides and mercy killings ensued: rather than leave their families to the invaders, hundreds of women killed themselves and their children or died at the hands of male family members. British observers decried an "Asian culture" of ritual suicide. In reality, the event was sui generis—a tragic result of colliding local and global forces in nineteenth-century China.

Gefährlicher Drache statt gemütlicher Panda: Mit welchen Strategien China die Welt erobert. Chinas Aufstieg zur Weltmacht ist unaufhaltsam. Lange erwartete man, dass sich das Land mit zunehmendem Wohlstand demokratisieren würde. Doch das Gegenteil ist der Fall. Die Kommunistische Partei Chinas will sich mit allen Mitteln an der Macht halten. Dafür werden Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im eigenen Land auf Linie gebracht und ein weitreichendes Programm wurde entwickelt, mit dem China die westlichen Demokratien unterwandert und eine neue Weltordnung etablieren will.

Not since the modern liberal order was born in the 1940s has the world had to grapple with the possibility of its demise, at the hand of a rising China. Just at a time when the world is in need of the stability and governance it has had the luxury of relying upon for decades, it must contemplate transitioning to a world order not of the West’s choosing. If the era of US hegemony is coming to an end, will the global institutions it was so instrumental in creating become less relevant and forceful with time?

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor, the last of the "Five Good Emperors", and one of the most important Stoic philosophers, along with the slave Epictetus. Marcus Aurelius wrote the "Meditations" while in a military campaign; it was a series of notes written for no one but himself in his quest for self-improvement. Stoicism is the attitude allowing one to free oneself from the unnecessary suffering that arises from anxiety about events that are beyond our control; therefore, it can be of tremendous importance in one's life.

Born in Shen Village in Southeast China, Shen Fuyu grew up in a family of farmers. Years later, Shen, now a writer, returned to his hometown to capture the village's rich history in the face of industrialization. Through his own childhood memories and those of his ancestors, Shen resurrects the working life of Shen Village through interlinked stories of 15 artisans as their lives intersect over the course of a century.

The conventional wisdom has held that China's economic power is very close to America's and that Washington cannot undertake a broad economic cutoff of China without hurting itself as much, or more. In Command of Commerce, Ben A. Vagle and Stephen G. Brooks show the conventional wisdom is wrong on both fronts. The authors argue that America's economic power has been underestimated because conventional economic measures have ignored America's unprecedented control over the world's largest multinational corporations.

China ist eine der leistungsfähigsten Volkswirtschaften! Aber wie ist es dazu gekommen? Und wie wirkt sich das auf andere Länder, insbesondere Deutschland aus? Diese und viele weitere Fragen beantwortet der China-Experte Frank Sieren in "Der China Code". Auf unterhaltsame und informative Art und Weise zeigt Sieren seinen Leser*innen die Parallelen zwischen Deutschland und China auf. Ein interessantes Buch über Wirtschaft, Politik und Kultur.

China ist Boomland, längst einer der Motoren der Weltwirtschaft. Innenpolitisch blieb das Land dabei immer autoritär, außenpolitisch zurückhaltend. Doch unter Xi Jinping, dem mächtigsten Staats- und Parteichef seit Mao, erfindet sich der autoritäre Staat neu, in offener Konkurrenz zum Westen. China marschiert nun selbstbewusst in die Welt, gleichzeitig gewährt sich sein System ein Update mit den Instrumenten des 21. Jahrhunderts: Peking setzt auf Big Data und künstliche Intelligenz wie keine zweite Regierung.

The former editor-in-chief of the Economist returns to the territory of his best-selling The Sun Also Sets to lay out a fresh analysis of the growing rivalry between China, India, and Japan and what it will mean for America, the global economy, and the 21st-century world.

It's 1983. Scott Savitt, one of the first American exchange students in Beijing, picks up his guitar and begins strumming Blackbird. He's soon surrounded by Chinese students who know every word to every Beatles song he plays. The city's first nightclubs open; rock 'n' roll promises democracy. Becoming foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times then United Press International, Scott finds himself drawn into China's political heart.