State of Asia – Details, episodes & analysis

On November 6, 2024, leading global thinker Adam Tooze delivered Asia Society Switzerland's third annual State of Asia Address in front of a full house in the prestigious aula of the University of Zurich, our partner for this event.

Adam holds the Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University in New York City. In 2019, Foreign Policy Magazine named him one of the top Global Thinkers of the decade.

Chartbook, his newsletter on economics, geopolitics and history, has over 120,000 subscribers. He is a columnist for Foreign Policy, where he also hosts a weekly economics podcast, Ones & Tooze.

The full text of Adam's 2024 State of Asia Address 'Asia in the Age of Polycrisis' is available on our website. A video of the address is here.

STATE OF ASIA brings you engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all.

Stay up-to-date on all events and activities at Asia Society Switzerland: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

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STATE OF ASIA is a podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 7, episode 6 - Published: November 12, 2024
Host/Editor: Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

China and India seem to be en route to a better, or less bad, relationship for the first time in years. Germany published its first 'Focus on India' policy paper, immediately followed by a visit of Chancellor Scholz to New Delhi.
The new EU Commission has specifically named India as an important part of its strategies.
Russia, just like India a founding member of BRICS and host of that forum's 2024 summit, has its own pressing reasons to maintain the historical ties with India.
And then there's the Quad, in which India cooperates ever closer with fellow democracies the United States, Australia, and Japan.

What is India making of this momentum? Will it stick to its policy of non-alignment, or is, despite all the approaches from all sides, nonetheless a tilt to the West visible?

On this episode, we discuss all this with Garima Mohan, Senior Fellow in the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund, where she leads the work on India and heads the India Trilateral Forum. Her research focuses on Europe-India ties, EU foreign policy in Asia, and security in the Indo-Pacific.

Garima is one of the speakers at our flagship STATE OF ASIA conference on November 7 in Zurich. Have a look at the full line-up and find information on how to get tickets on our website.

The evening before, on November 6, renowned historian and global thinker Adam Tooze delivers our State of Asia Address in Zurich. This is a public event, though registration to attend is crucial. More info here.

STATE OF ASIA brings you engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all.

Stay up-to-date on all events and activities at Asia Society Switzerland: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

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STATE OF ASIA is a podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 7, episode 5 - Published: October 29, 2024
Host: Serena Jung, Program and Communications Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Editor/producer: Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

As tensions simmer in its immediate environment, Japan is on high alert. In the midst of China's "sustained aggressiveness," Japan is revising its defense and security policies.
But how does this align with its pacifist constitution, and is there still room for engagement with China? Hear from Yuki Tatsumi, Senior Fellow, Co-Director of the East Asia Program, and Director of the Japan Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC.
Yuki sheds light on Japan's historical approach to China, the current state of their bilateral relations, and the delicate balance between deterrence and engagement.
We also discuss the implications of Japan's changing security policies on its relationship with other regional players, including South Korea and India and we explore the sentiment of the Japanese public towards these shifts.

Want more insights on Japan’s foreign policy? Watch Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator at the Financial Times in conversation with Jesper Koll at Asia Society Japan in this video.

STATE OF ASIA brings you engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all.
Stay up-to-date on all events and activities at Asia Society Switzerland: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

-
STATE OF ASIA is a podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 6, episode 5 - Published: May 28, 2024
Host/Producer: Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

China’s leader Xi Jinping raised his country’s relationship with EU and NATO member Hungary to a level that puts Hungary almost as close to Beijing’s chest as Russia and North Korea are.

Western Europe long regarded  the ’new’ EU member states in the East as Trojan horses. But views on, and relations with, China have grown very diverse in Central and Eastern Europe. Especially in the Baltics, the Czech Republic and, increasingly, Poland, China is looked at with suspicion, given its support of Russia’s war in Ukraine and Beijing's failed attempt over the past decade to reel them in through the now defunct 17+1 grouping.

A week after Xi’s visit to Hungary, Serbia, and France, and ahead of June’s European Parliament elections, we speak with Alicja Bachulska, policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations on how the experiences Central and Eastern European countries have dealing with China can contribute to a stronger European China policy.

Alicja co-authored The Missing Pieces? How CEE Can Contribute To A Stronger European Approach To China, a research paper published in April 2024. The full report is available on the website of CHOICE, China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe.

Also in April, the Asia Society Policy Institute published a report on the experience Lithuania had dealing with economic coercion coming from China. That’s available here.

STATE OF ASIA brings you engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all.
Stay up-to-date on all events and activities at Asia Society Switzerland: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

-
STATE OF ASIA is a podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 6, episode 4 - Published: May 14, 2024
Host/Producer: Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

Indira Ranamagar is Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives of Nepal since January 2023. She started her career as a primary science and maths teacher in village schools in the southeast of Nepal, and became a social worker in prisons in 1990. For well over 30 years now, she has been a prolific human rights and social worker. In 2000, she founded the NGO Prisoner’s Assistance Nepal, which looks after prisoners' welfare and works to give children whose parents are imprisoned an education and a roof over their heads.

In 2022, she was elected to Nepal’s House of Representatives on behalf of a brand-new political party, taking her social work from the streets to parliament.

In 2007, Indira was named an Asia 21 Young Leader by the global network of Asia Society, while in 2009 her NGO PA Nepal received the Asia Society Asia 21 Public Service Award. In 2017, she was the first Nepali to feature on the BBC’s list of the 100 most influential women in the world.

For more on Nepal, watch this episode of our popular series A Closer Look: a quick but deep dive into the Himalayan nation with Nepalese investor Suman Joshi, recorded in March, 2023.

STATE OF ASIA brings you engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all.
Stay up-to-date on all events and activities at Asia Society Switzerland: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

-
STATE OF ASIA is a podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 6, episode 3 - Published: April 29, 2024
Host/Producer: Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

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 country.

As India heads to the polls over a 6-week period beginning April 19, we talk with Nalin about how the BJP built and expanded its power base, and what Modi, who is all but certain to once again win the elections, could set as priorities upon starting his second decade as Prime Minister.

STATE OF ASIA brings you engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all.
Stay up-to-date on all events and activities at Asia Society Switzerland: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

-
STATE OF ASIA is a podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 6, episode 2 - Published: April 16, 2024
Host: Nico Luchsinger, Executive Director, Asia Society Switzerland
Editor/Producer: Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

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, Indonesia, and Vietnam expand their international clout.

As the balance of power shifts east, will the world order inevitably change? Asia is far from a monolithic actor, and for all the talk about an "Asian Century", there is arguably no coherent vision from Asia on how the global community should operate. And many countries, especially China, have benefitted from the current system, and might seek to adjust rather than replace it.

In this bonus episode of STATE OF ASIA, listen to four experts taking sides over the motion "Asia’s Rise Will Lead to a New World Order", as they did in an Oxford Debate in front of a live audience in Zurich on April 8, 2024.

Presenting clear-cut, time-constrained, well-thought-out arguments are:

• John Delury, a historian and a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.
• Abigaël Vasselier, director for Policy and European Affairs and head of the Foreign Relations team at MERICS in Berlin.
• Julia Ganter, Programme Director International Affairs at the German foundation Körber-Stiftung and head of the Körber Emerging Middle Powers Initiative, based in Berlin.
• John Lee, director of consultancy East West Futures and a researcher at the Leiden Asia Centre.

Watch the entire debate on the Asia Society YouTube channel, and learn more about the speakers on our website.

Our Oxford Debate series offers insights into complex issues, presented in short and clear arguments. Find all editions here.

Stay up-to-date on all our activities: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

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STATE OF ASIA is a podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 6, bonus episode 3 - Published: April 9,  2024
Host and Producer: Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

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 University Press, 2023). It's full of original reporting and great conversations with Mongolians, from angry elderly people in the street and the lead singer of internationally successful Mongolian band The HU to the country's Prime Minister.

In this episode, we talk about how Mongolia is gearing up to be Asia's next economic miracle. And it's not just because of mining: the country has a vibrant tech start-up scene and is making strides in the energy transition.
All the while, this vibrant democracy of 3.3 million people, wedged between authoritarian giants China and Russia, manages to stay friendly with almost any country it interacts with.

Check out the music from The HU here, and watch here how Mongolia's largest restaurant, at the Oyu Tolgoy mine in the Gobi desert, feeds over 6,000 miners every day.
More on the upcoming Oxford Debate LIVE on the motion 'Asia's rise will lead to a new world order', taking place on April 8, 2024, in Zurich, is on our website.

STATE OF ASIA brings you engaging conversations with leading minds on the issues that shape Asia and affect us all.
Stay up-to-date on all events and activities at Asia Society Switzerland: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

-
STATE OF ASIA is a podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 6, episode 1 - Published: March 26, 2024
Host/Producer: Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

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, for now, most unknown nations: Mongolia. New episodes follow every other Tuesday.

Plus: look out for special episodes bringing you insights from some of the many events organized by Asia Society Switzerland.
Stay up-to-date on all our activities: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

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STATE OF ASIA is a podcast series from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 6 trailer - Published: March 19, 2024

Editor/Producer:
Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland

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 former general Prabowo Subianto, the winner of the February 14 elections.

Talking about Jokowi's legacy from a ground-level perspective are Nimas Mega Purnamasari, who runs the Bali campus of the national United in Diversity organization; and Yoes Kenawas, a research fellow at Atma Jaya Catholic University who is an expert on political dynasties in Indonesia, and a strong believer in the role of comedy in building a mature democracy.

More on A Closer Look: Indonesia After Jokowi, including the webcast is here.
Check out the trailer for hit drama series Cigarette Girl, and the music of Nadif Basalamah. And more of Indonesian stand-up comedian Pandji Pragiwaksono is here.

Stay up-to-date on all our activities: subscribe to the newsletter and support our work by becoming a member.

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STATE OF ASIA is a podcast from Asia Society Switzerland. 
Season 6,  Bonus episode 2 - Published: February 20, 2024
Host and Producer: Remko Tanis, Programs and Editorial Manager, Asia Society Switzerland