Nalin Mehta is a political scientist and journalist in Delhi, India, and author of The New BJP, a work you can only call THE book on the BJP, the largest political party in the world. Under the leadership of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP has solidified its position as the uncontested center of power in the world's most populous coun…

There is little to dispute about Asia's rise as a key feature of our time. Already the world's most populous region, Asian countries have steadily gained in economic and political influence on the world stage in recent decades. While in the past this development has been driven heavily by China, the next few years will see countries like India, Ind…

Johan Nylander is an award-winning author and freelance China and Asia correspondent. His work is published by CNN, Forbes, Sweden’s leading business daily Dagens Industri, and many other international media outlets. His most recent book is The Wolf Economy Awakens – Mongolia’s Fight for Democracy, and a Green and Digital Future (Hong Kong Universi…

STATE OF ASIA, the podcast from Asia Society Switzerland, is back with engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all. The new season premieres Tuesday, March 26, with a conversation with Hong Kong-based journalist and author Johan Nylander, whose latest book is a deep dive on one of Asia's largest but, fo…

A Closer Look is our popular series taking quick but deep dives into countries and issues that matter, with webcasts, podcasts, and in-person events. This episode is part of A Closer Look: Indonesia After Jokowi, looking at what's next for the Southeast Asian giant now that the hugely popular President Joko Widodo is preparing to hand over to forme…

For decades, Taiwan has existed in a fragile balance, neither truly independent nor unified with mainland China. While this status quo has proven surprisingly enduring, China's continued economic and military rise and its government’s increasing nationalistic rhetoric have raised fears of a conflict around the island – accidental or intentional. Wh…

Two terrific knowers of China talk about the prospects for the struggling Chinese economy and the question that's on the mind of foreign companies in the country: stay, or go? Listen to Keyu Jin, well-connected professor at the London School of Economics and author of 2023's The New China Playbook; and Jörg Wuttke, President Emeritus of the Europea…

On November 21, 2023, Singaporean diplomatic legend Bilahari Kausikan delivered Asia Society Switzerland's second annual State of Asia Address in front of a full house in the prestigious Aula of the University of Zurich. He set himself up to answer the question: Will this – can this – be the ‘Asian century’, in a highly original speech filled with …

Fuchsia Dunlop is a master cook, celebrated food writer, and accredited chef of Chinese cuisines. She was the first Westerner to train as a chef at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine and has spent much of the last two decades exploring China and its food. She is the author of several award-winning books, and a contributor to the Financial Time…

India is having an eventful year. It led the G20, worked to welcome more members into the BRICS, and it landed on the moon. Despite persisting domestic issues, from economic inequality to shrinking civil liberties, India is thriving in its foreign relations – which may help Prime Minister Modi, as he gears up for elections due next spring. India ha…

C. Raja Mohan is a Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Delhi, India who has published widely on India’s foreign and security policies, Asian geopolitics, and the global governance of advanced technologies. Last November, he delivered our annual State of Asia Address, which he kicked off by saying he wouldn't have minded talking ab…

Simona Grano is an associate professor at the University of Zurich and a Senior Fellow at Asia Society's Center for China Analysis, where she focuses on Taiwan and its upcoming presidential election. In this episode she gives us a lay of the land ahead of Taiwan's January 2024 presidential election. Instead of the usual 2, this time 4 candidates ar…

Things are heating up in Solomon Islands. The South Pacific island nation of 700,000 people is gearing up to host its greatest event ever: the 2023 Pacific Games. China has built and financed most of the venues for the games, while Australia paid for dormitories for the 5,000 athletes from 24 countries, and Japan is improving the roads. All this, a…

Alexander Gabuev is the Director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, based in Berlin. In this episode, he talks about having to leave Moscow and how he now gauges what's happening in Russia from abroad. He explains how Russia is out of options and increasingly seems to become a vassal state of China, and he talks about how alienation between Chi…

Bilahari Kausikan is an iconic veteran of diplomacy, with a career of 37 years under his belt at Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as Ambassador to Russia, to the UN in New York, and as the Ministry's Permanent Secretary. In this episode, he explains why he's not unhopeful about the state of the world, the fundamental dilemma facin…

State of Asia, the podcast from Asia Society Switzerland, is back with a new season of engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all. The season premieres Tuesday, Sep 19, with a conversation with Bilahari Kausikan, former Ambassador and Permanent Secretary at Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. New …

Asia Inside Out, a podcast from our friends at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), just relaunched. The first episode, which we're sharing here, features Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, in conversation with Rorry Daniels, Managing Director at ASPI. Subscribe to Asia Inside Out in your favourite podcast app, or listen here. Get in the …

Evan Feigenbaum, Vice President at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has a career spanning the highest levels of government, academia, think tanks, and the private sector, covering Central, South, and East Asia. It makes him uniquely qualified to discuss the State of Asia writ large on this final episode of the season. He talks about …

In this bonus episode of STATE OF ASIA, listen to four experts debate whether Europe should side with the U.S. on China, or carve out its own path in the relationship with Beijing. They participated in an Oxford Debate in front of a live audience in Zurich on June 26, 2023, organised by Asia Society Switzerland. Presenting clear-cut, time-constrain…

Amrita Narlikar is President of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies and Professor of International Relations at the University of Hamburg. She is currently also serving as a co-chair of the T20's Task Force 3, which forms a part of the G20 process under India's Presidency. In this episode, she talks about why the West should engage and…

Brian Hioe 丘琦欣 is a Taipei-based editor and writer. He is one of the founding editors of New Bloom Magazine, an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and Asia Pacific. He is a non-resident fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Taiwan Studies Programme, as well as a freelance journalist and translator. He also writes regu…

Huong Le Thu is a non-resident fellow with the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She's a prolific writer and influential voice on Southeast Asia and its role in the region. In this episode, she talks about Southeast Asia's positioning in the great power competition between China and the U.S., and what opp…

In this bonus episode of STATE OF ASIA, listen to four experts debate whether Japan's recently announced military build-up is a threat to regional stability, in an Oxford Debate organised on May 9, 2023, by Asia Society Switzerland. Presenting clear-cut, time-constrained arguments are: John Delury, professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University …

Marina Rudyak is a sinologist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, working on the intersections of China Studies and International Development. Her research focuses on China as a global development actor, the implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and China in Central Asia and Africa. She also frequently comments on China's rela…

Sherry Rehman is Pakistan's Federal Minister for Climate Change. She was just named one of 2023's 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine. At the most recent U.N. climate talks, in November 2022, she led a delegation of 77 developing nations plus China. She sits down with Asia Society Switzerland to talk about the apocalyptic effe…

State of Asia, the podcast from Asia Society Switzerland, is back with a new season of engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all. The season premieres this Tuesday with a conversation with Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Climate Change. New episodes follow every other Tuesday. Over the …

A bonus episode, fully dedicated to India, before we kick-off an all new season of the State of Asia podcast. Nico Luchsinger, Executive Director of Asia Society Switzerland, recently spent nine days in India to take the pulse of the subcontinent that is certainly having its moment. He spoke with a wide range of experts in New Delhi on India's deve…

A nice extra in the State of Asia feed: an episode of Bergos Now, the podcast from Bergos Private Bank, hosted by Aurelia Rauch. In this episode, Aurelia speaks with Nico Luchsinger, Executive Director of Asia Society Switzerland, on the State of Asia. Together they ask themselves: Is this the Asian Century? And where is Asia, really? The episode w…

In this bonus episode of State of Asia, listen to four stellar experts debating whether China has reached the peak of its global power, in a recent Oxford Debate organised by Asia Society Switzerland. Presenting clear-cut, time-constrained, well-thought-out arguments are: Simona Grano, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Taiwan Studies Project at t…

In this episode, listen to the inaugural State of Asia Address, given by C. Raja Mohan, one of India's foremost foreign policy thinkers and a Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New Delhi. Raja talks about new pessimism surrounding the rise of Asia with the return of great power rivalry. He pleads for much deeper connections betwe…

Agatha Kratz heads Rhodium Group’s China corporate advisory team, as well as its research on European Union-China relations and China’s economic statecraft. She contributes to Rhodium's work on China’s global investment, industrial policy and technology aspirations. Agatha is also a non-resident Adjunct Fellow of the Reconnecting Asia Project at th…

James Crabtree leads the growing research team of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore, focused on the Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining the IISS, James was a Singapore-based author and journalist, and an Associate Professor of Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. His best-selling 2018 book, The Billionaire R…

Leni Robredo was the 14th Vice President of the Philippines, serving from 2016 to 2022. During her term, she reinvented the Office of the Vice President from a purely ceremonial one into an advocacy centered office, instituting poverty alleviation programs all over the country. This May, she lost in the presidential elections to Ferdinand 'Bong Bon…

C. Raja Mohan is one if India's foremost foreign policy thinkers and a Senior Fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute in New Delhi, India. He has published widely on India's foreign and security policies and Asian geopolitics. He also is a columnist for Foreign Policy and a contributing editor on international affairs at the Indian Express. I…

Tomohiko Taniguchi was Special Advisor to Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister, the late Shinzo Abe. He was the primary writer on Abe's foreign policy speeches, having joined the ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2005 after a 20-year career in journalism at Nikkei Business. He is currently a professor at Keio University specializing in international…

State of Asia is the podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. Engaging conversations with leading minds on current and future developments in Asia, that affect us all. This season, our guests include: Leni Robredo, until recently Vice President of the Philippines; C Raja Mohan, one of India's foremost foreign policy thinkers; and John Zhu, Chief Econ…

Legislative Council member Iswandy Ahmad and agricultural entrepreneur Dr. Vanessa Teo talk about their homeland Brunei – the independent Islamic sultanate on the island of Borneo. Brunei boasts a well-educated population, excellent infrastructure, and a stable government. It is a member of the Commonwealth and of the Association of Southeast Asian…

Supreme Court lawyer Sara Hossain and academic Dr. Faraha Nawaz talk about their homeland Bangladesh – one of the world’s most crowded countries. Bangladesh has been going through remarkable developments since the 1990s. Millions have been pulled out of poverty, the garment industry has flourished, and before the pandemic, economic growth exceeded …

Human rights lawyer Dilfuza Kurolova and political scientist Dr. Farkhod Tolipov talk about their homeland Uzbekistan – the land locked and most populous country of Central Asia. After two decades of economic and political isolation under the former President Islom Karimov, there are hopes that the current president will bring the much needed chang…

Human rights lawyer Bhavani Fonseka and human rights advocate Ambika Satkunanathan talk about their homeland Sri Lanka – the island nation just off the southeastern coast of India. Sri Lanka boasts a large, well-educated population, great economic potential, a history of democracy, and popular tourist attractions. At the same time, the country has …

Journalist and Musician Kunga Tenzin Dorji, known as Supe, talks about his homeland Bhutan – the landlocked country located in the Eastern Himalayas. Until the 1960s, the kingdom of Bhutan was isolated from the rest of the world. When Bhutan started to open up, it did not modernize blindly, as Supe points out. The tiny nation wedged between India a…

Our second podcast season "Meet My Country" is out. In this season, you will learn about a new Asian country in each edition from the perspective of leading local voices.저자 Asia Society Switzerland

In politics, if you are criticized from all sides, it’s usually a sign you’ve reached a good compromise. So it was with Switzerland’s recently unveiled China Strategy: It was seen as either being too harsh or way too lax on China. Swiss Ambassador Raphael Naegeli shares with us why Switzerland’s new China Strategy is a good step forward and not all…

As China increases its power and moves westwards, Russia is looking more to the East. The Soviet Union and newly communist China were, at a time, very close. In recent years and especially since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the countries have intensified their relationship. The Sino-Russia relationship is more than a partnership, but less than an…

While China’s largest neighbor India is expected to overtake China by population within only a few years, it is struggling in most other areas to compete with the other giant emerging country. The recent border clashes only led the already complicated relations to deteriorate. As for most countries, India will have to balance furthering its economi…

China has responded to the call for investments in Africa like no other country. Since the end of the 1990s, China’s increasing financial and economic engagement in Africa has led to critical debates whether China can offer a good alternative to Western aid and charity. Its relationships with African countries has also become ever more political. Y…

China is the largest source of development assistance and investment in Cambodia and Laos. Both governments maintain close relations with China, where its presence is more marked than anywhere else in Southeast Asia. The region is one of the primary targets for the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with one main line running from Kunming, Chi…

China’s relations with the historically more remote, maritime and Muslim-majority countries Indonesia and Malaysia are complex and historically intertwined. For both Indonesia and Malaysia, China is a vital economic partner, but tensions in the South China Sea and anti-China sentiments remain prevalent. The Indo-Pacific being home to significant gl…

Listen to Asia Society Switzerland's Nico Luchsinger on our first podcast season "China and the World".저자 Asia Society Switzerland