Contemporary Chinese Political Economy And Strategic Relations

[Anais Wachowski]

Onefirm has become emblematic of risk in the deteriorating geopolitical contest between the United States and China. Huawei is a Chinese, and global, leader in next generation telecommunications but is feared by the US and some of its allies as a potential vector of cyber-attacks including espionage and state-directed sabotage, as well as constructing digital standards and infrastructure that will extend Chinese state influence globally. A paradox is that in the absence of trust and international cooperation, firms such as Huawei cannot disprove normative worst-case risk scenarios. The logic of the Huawei paradox threatens decoupling and bifurcation of the world into two rival technological systems, with repercussions for international security, international relations and the international economy. A political risk analysis concludes that the risks originate from geopolitical factors rather than factors specific to the firm and can therefore only be resolved (if there is political will) at the level of global or regional governance with enforceable rules, norms and standards and at the national level with risk avoidance or improved risk management and mitigation measures.

Japanese culture, Japan in international relations, Japanese Empire, transnational history of East Asia, contemporary Japanese soft power relations, defining "other", ethnicity, race, and identity in contemporary Japan, nationalism, colonialism and imperialism in East Asia.

Climate change and sustainability in East Asia; food and water security; international relations, policy, and security; women's economic empowerment; startups and technology; cross-strait relations; nationalism and legitimacy.

Medieval Japanese Buddhism; Japanese Buddhist art; Sino-Japanese relations; tea ceremony; gender perceptions in medieval and early modern Japan; early modern Japanese society; Japanese woodblock prints

Chinese foreign policy; authoritarian politics; state-society relations; civil society and the internet; technology and governance; East Asian feminisms; Canada-China relations; contemporary Chinese diaspora

Digital humanities; Linguistics, particularly sociolinguistics and cognitive linguistics; International relations; Korean Wave and cultural economy; Political economy; Computational social sciences; Gender Studies; Comparative literature

Dr. Lai's research covers China's domestic political economy (reform strategies, national-local relations, regional development and ethnic areas), international political economy (including energy diplomacy and overseas expansion of the national energy firms), governance (including protests, state-societal relations, institutional development, and transformation and vitality of the regime), and foreign policy (domestic linkage and soft power). His academic publications in English include eight books, over twenty refereed journal articles, and twenty book chapters.

His research has been published in major journals in the field such as China Quarterly, China Journal, and Modern China, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Third World Quarterly, as well as established journals such as Journal of Contemporary China and Asian Perspective. His article on China's western development (2002) is one of the most frequently cited on the topic. His co-authored article on protests (Chung, Lai and Xia 2006) has been included in a collection of seminal works on Chinese politics (Routledge, 2009). His other often-cited articles cover China's energy security and diplomacy and religious activities. His publications have been assigned as readings at leading universities in the US, Canada, UK, and Asia. These universities include Harvard, Michigan, Southern California, Case Western Reserve, George Washington, Arizona State, Leeds, Ottawa, York (Canada), Beijing, Shanghai Jiaotong, Zhejiang, and National Singapore.

His single-authored books in English appear in established or leading presses in Asian and political studies. They include 1) Reform and the Non-state Economy in China: The Political Economy of Liberalization Strategies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 2) The Domestic Sources of China's Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2010), and 3) China's Governance Model: Flexibility and Durability of Pragmatic Authoritarianism (Routledge, June 2016). The first book has been praised by leading scholars in the fields as an important contribution to the literature on economic transition. The second book is the first monograph on that important topic. In this book he criticizes the mainstream theories in international relations and develops a new framework to account for external conduct of nation-states especially China. His aforementioned third book develops an analytical notion of China's governance model and assesses the changes of the political regime in China as well as its ability to survive challenges. This book has been hailed by a world-leading scholar on China's politics as a book that "will make a significant contribution to the study of Chinese politics and may well define the debate" "for years to come".

His co-edited book China into the Hu-Wen Era: (World Scientific, 2006) is an earliest systemic assessment of the Chinese Hu-Wen leadership. His edited book Asian Energy Security: The Maritime Dimension (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) explores energy and maritime security from the perspective of global public goods. His another co-edited book China's Soft Power and International Relations (Routledge, 2012) provided a theoretical assessment of the notion of soft power and contains empirically-based and critical assessments of China's efforts to build its soft power at the world stage in the recent decade. His most recent co-edited book Managing China's Energy Sector: Between the Market and the State (Routledge, 2015) provided analyses and assessments of the transformation of China's energy sector (including its internationalisation and the renewable energy sector) and the business-government relations in the recent decades.

Dr. Lai is also a prolific media commentator on China. His opinions, analyses and comments appear in influential outlets including the Financial Times, China Daily, Far Eastern Economic Review, the International Economy magazine, South China Morning Post, the Straits Times and the Lianhe Zaobao (in Singapore). Some of his ideas have found echoes in China's subsequent management of domestic and external crises, foreign affairs, macro-economic and major local issues.

Governance; Protests and religious activities; Elite politics and leadership; Central-local relations; Democratisation and political reform; Ethnic policy; Religious policy; Economic reform and transition; Regional developmental programmes; Domestic sources of foreign policy; Economic diplomacy; China's soft power and international relations.

Dr. Lai has been a programme leader/coordinator for BA Contemporary Chinese Studies and International Relations and for Msci Global Issues and Contemporary Chinese Studies for years. He teaches modules on government and politics, political economy and international political economy of China. His teaching has been enriched by insights and information from his research as well as his observation of China for the past decades.

Governance and institutional reform (including crisis management and ideological formulation); Authoritarianism, political stability and protests; Elite politics and leadership; Democratisation and political reform; Ethnic policy; Religious policy and religious activities; Economic diplomacy; China's soft power; China's international relations; China's international political economy; Linkage between domestic and external politics (and political economy); China's energy security and energy diplomacy; China's energy policy and energy sector; Regional developmental programs, especially western development, central regional development, and northeast revival; Political economy of economic reform and transition; Central-local relations.

Comparative Politics and International Relations: Introduction to politics; comparative politics; international political economy; state-society relations; theories of the state and state formation; the rise and fall of great powers.

Regional Specialization: East Asian political economy; problems and issues of contemporary Chinese politics; Chinese foreign policy; China-US relations; Sino-capitalism and the emerging world order.

Business Specialization: Comparative business systems; the history of finance, central banking, and currency systems; the global financial crisis of 2008; Chinese business and management systems; China-US business relations.

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Indigenous Peoples in Canada have called Pacific coast lands and shorelines home for millennia, and they have shared Indigenous trade networks that have historically extended to Indigenous Peoples all around the Pacific.

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