The Return of an Empire? China’s Asian Policy in the Xi Jinping Era

China’s impact on the ongoing formation of a new political order in Asia has become stronger over the last decade, and particularly so since Xi Jinping is steering the wheel of the Chinese party state. The ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, the new assertion of territorial claims in the Chinese periphery and the Chinese approach to East Asian regionalism bespeak a future that brings the whole of Asia into the orbit of a new force that stretches far beyond the borders of the Chinese nation state. This lecture takes stock of China’s Asian Policy in recent years and ponders the rise of a new geopolitical system in Asia that may be best understood in terms of ‘empire’, though in a modern form.

Gunter Schubert is Chair Professor of Greater China Studies and director of the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan (ERCCT), Tübingen University. He is also an Einstein Fellow Plus at the Graduate School of East Asian Studies (GEAS), Freie Universität Berlin, since 2017.

This lecture is part of the GEAS Open Colloquium.The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session and some light refreshments.