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 Liu

Keren:

• Peter Hessler's writings, specifically River Town, Oracle Bones, Country Driving

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 Japan
• BM-01 record
  
  

Juliet:

• Rodenbiker, Jesse; Global China in the American heartland: Chinese investment, populist coalitions, and the new red scare (2024)

Leland Lazarus joins Juliet to talk about Chinese and Taiwanese engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean, from official diplomatic activities to BRI projects to transnational organized crime.

Leland Lazarus is the Associate Director of National Security at Florida International University’s Jack D. Gordon Institute of Public Policy. He is an expert on China’s relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, and manages a team of researchers and interns that collect data and analysis on U.S. national security and governance in the region. Fluent in both Mandarin and Spanish, he holds an M.A. in U.S.-China Foreign Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a B.A. in International Relations at Brown University. His past experience includes work in the U.S. Embassy for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, the U.S. Consulate General in Shenyang, China, and former work as an Associate Producer at China Central Television and as a Fulbright Scholar in Panama.

Recommendations:

Leland:

• Earth League International's work, particularly that of Andrea Crosta, founder, executive director, and board member
• Chinese Activities in LAC Dashboard (soon to release 2.0)
• FIU flagship conference: Hemispheric Security Conference on May 9 and 10

Juliet:

• China in Global Capitalism: Building International Solidarity Against Imperial Rivalry by Eli Friedman, Kevin Lin, Rosa Liu, Ashley Smith (coming June 2024)