CHINAwatch

South Korea and the US have kicked off joint war games - wider implications

Live interview with Press TV on 25 September 2023

China's Role in a Multipolar World

PowerPoint presentation at the 10th Annual Conference on International Studies, Center for Strategic Research and Analysis, Lisbon, Portugal 14-15 September 2023. (CESRAN 2023) (An online presentation) 

Download China's Role in a Multipolar World - CESRAN 2023 (New) [Autosaved]                                                                                      

Why doesn't President Xi attend the 2023 G20 Summit?

Live exclusive TV interview on 9 September 2023 with WION, an Indian English News TV channel 

How China shifted gears on electric vehicles - and why it matters

My China Daily Op-ed  of 21 August flagged up China's rising global electric vehicles (EV) dominance, amongst other things, to illustrate China's resilience. The above -titled well-researched piece dated 14 August in The National Interest delves into the subject in depth. 

China's defeated youth

A product of China's now-defunct "One Child Policy", a sizeable proportion of the nation's millennials have had their nests well-feathered during China's "golden era" of sustained prosperity, which saw the nation leapfrogging to become the world's second largest economy. Theirs are the so-called "4-2-1" generation: much-better times saw them grow up as a single child each pampered by two working parents and their respective grannies. 

Sure they have had their years of hard grind as they faced unrelenting competition for admission to university, not to mention a prestigious one. But once they graduated, they were generally assured of a more secured future. 

No longer. A host of deep-seated domestic and global challenges are catching up on China in a "perfect storm" of changes, and opportunities, "not seen in a hundred years", as flagged up by President Xi from time to time. 

As China is trying to cope with a much more hostile external environment and systemic domestic economic challenges, job opportunities for graduates have dwindled, compounded by a record-high supply of 12 million new graduates a year. This comes at a time when the Fourth Industrialization is re-shaping how lives and work are organized and distributed, resulting in disappearance and sea-change of many job requirements. The prohibitively-high cost of raising a family including housing and education adds to a sense of frustration and despair. 

Their hopelessness and negative feelings, however, are not commonly shared by their parents', let alone grandparents' generations, who had weathered much worse times, often with untold personal sacrifices. 

All this is well captured by The Economist (17 August 2023) expose China's defeated youth.

It will take time, perhaps a decade or so, for China's young generation to adjust to these new realities. 

In any case, against all odds, China's trajectory appears to be on track to unfold a new era of renaissance, where the current "defeated" youth will have to rise to unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Click here.

 

“US and China standing on the edge of a cliff”

Live interview on 18 June 2023 with Press TV.

Chinese aircraft carriers pass through Taiwan Strait: wider implications

Live interview with Press TV on 27 May 2023

Is the mighty dollar facing a worthy challenger?

Live TV panel discussion on The Newsmakers with TRT World on 18 May 2023.

Has the EU visit shown a ‘united European front’ or emboldened China's stance on Ukraine and Taiwan?

Live TV panel discussion on TRT World's "The Newsmakers" program on 10 April 2023 

China warns of retaliation if Taiwan president meets US speaker

Live exclusive interview with Press TV on 30 March, 2023