The world has been utterly confused by China’s attitude to Russia and the war in Ukraine. One thing is sure, says China analyst Ian Johnson in an opinion piece for CNN, we should not expect China to solve the war in Ukraine. “Becoming involved in foreigners’ disputes makes no sense. Better to stay out of the fray, see who is likely to win, and then cut deals,” Ian Johnson says.Read More →
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised multiple questions on China’s relationship with Russia, Taiwan, and the USA. CFR-scholar Ian Johnson looks at the CFR-blog at a wide range of the international fallout of recent affairs. And can and will China bail out Putin from the economic and financial sanctions?Read More →
How will people remember the Wuhan lockdown, two years ago at the start of the global coronavirus crisis, asks CFR-scholar Ian Johnson in a debate at the NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge on the book “The Wuhan Lockdown”, by Yang Guobin. How successful has the state been in suppressing the knowledge of this hiccup in communist rule in Wuhan, Ian Johnson asks the author.Read More →
When China won 2015 the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, it was seen as a huge win after the successful 2008 Olympics. But the event has developed into a major headache, and it is not only because of the coronavirus, writers CFR-scholar Ian Johnson on the CFR website.Read More →
CFR-scholar Ian Johnson introduces and interviews bestseller author Liang Hong (in translation) about her book China in One Village on the vanishing villages and the costs of economic growth in the countryside, for the China Institute.Read More →
China watcher and CFR-scholar Ian Johnson opens a roundtable conference at the National University of Singapore on the question whether the world is heading for a new cold war, now the tensions between China and the USA have not diminished after the US president Joe Biden took over from Donald Trump.Read More →
China is drawing its future, including becoming the world’s largest economy by 2035. China watcher and CFR-scholar Ian Johnson looks at the CFR website at the decisions taken at the November 2021 Plenum of the Communist Party, as the country prepares for its party conference in 2022 with a new 5-year plan.Read More →
CFR-scholar Ian Johnson describes how oral history changes the perception people have about the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, now documents and interviews emerge on the internet, he tells at the Manchester China Institute.Read More →
CFR-scholar Ian Johnson discusses the way the West lost its interest in China and missed the wide-ranging intellectual debate in China. He reacts on contributions by David Ownby and Xiang Biao who plead for the inclusion of China’s intellectuals into the global debate, instead of ignoring them, at the Berlin Contemporary China Net (BCCN). You can find the full debate here.Read More →
A lot of speculations have marred the relations between Afghanistan’s Taliban and the outside world. For China for example the exploitation of rare earths shows up regularly, but China veteran Ian Johnson, a senior fellow at the CFR, explains why security in Xinjiang is key for China’s considerations, he tells in PRI.Read More →
China and the US have continued their warrior diplomacy, also after US president Joe Biden took over from Donald Trump. CFR-scholar Ian Johnson sees both upsides and downsides in the fierce language both countries use to define their relationship, he tells at ShanghaiEyes.Read More →
China has been talking informally to the Taliban, but now the Islamic group has taken over neighboring Afghanistan, the situation is more tricky, says CFR-scholar Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao to CNBRead More →