Joshua Kurlantzick discusses Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World. Moderated by T.J. Pempel.
In Charm Offensive, scholar and writer Joshua Kurlantzick examines the ways China's soft power is reshaping the world. With growing support from nations in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, China could become the first nation since the fall of the Soviet Union to seriously challenge the U.S. for control of the international system.
Bio
Joshua Kurlantzick
Joshua Kurlantzick is a visiting scholar in the Carnegie Endowment's China Program. Also a special correspondent for The New Republic and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, Kurlantzick is assessing China's relationship with the developing world, including Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Kurlantzick's book, Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World (Yale University Press), focuses on how China uses its soft power - culture, investment, academia, foreign aid, public diplomacy - to influence other countries in the developing world. Additionally, Kurlantzick is currently a fellow at the USC School of Public Diplomacy and the Pacific Council on International Policy.
Kurlantzick was previously foreign editor at The New Republic. Earlier, he covered international economics and trade for U.S. News and World Report. He also reported on Southeast Asia for The Economist as a correspondent based in Bangkok, Thailand. Kurlantzick's articles also have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, Current History, and The Washington Quarterly.
T.J, Pempel
T. J. Pempel (Ph.D., Columbia) joined Berkeley's Political Science Department in July 2001 and served as director of the Institute of East Asian Studies from 2002 until 2006. There he held the Il Han New Chair in Asian Studies.
Just prior to coming to Berkeley, he was at the University of Washington at Seattle where he was the Boeing Professor of International Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies and an adjunct professor in Political Science. From 1972 to 1991, he was on the faculty at Cornell University; he was also Director of Cornell's East Asia Program.
He has also been a faculty member at the University of Colorado and the University of Wisconsin. Professor Pempel's research and teaching focus on comparative politics, political economy, contemporary Japan, and Asian regionalism.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Country, eastern Asia. Area: 3,696,100 sq mi (9,572,900 sq km). Population (2009 est.): 1,331,433,000. Capital: Beijing. It is the world's most populous country, the Han (ethnic Chinese) forming more than nine-tenths of the population. Languages: dialects of Han Chinese, Mandarin being the most important. Religions: traditional beliefs, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Daoism (all legally sanctioned). Currency: renminbi (of which the unit is the yuan). China has several topographic regions. The southwestern area contains the Plateau of Tibet, which averages more than 13,000 ft (4,000 m) above sea level; its core area, averaging more than 16,000 ft (5,000 m) in elevation, is called the Roof of the World and provides the headwaters for many of Asia's major rivers. Higher yet are the border ranges, the Kunlun Mountains to the north and the Himalayas to the south. China's northwestern region stretches from Afghanistan to the Northeast (Manchurian) Plain. The Tien Shan (Celestial Mountains) separate China's two major interior basins, the Tarim Basin (containing the Takla Makan Desert) and the Junggar Basin. The Mongolian Plateau contains the southernmost part of the Gobi Desert. The lowlands of the eastern region include the Sichuan Basin, which runs along the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang); the Yangtze divides the eastern region into northern and southern parts. The Tarim is the major river in the northwest. China's numerous other rivers include the Huang He (Yellow River), Xi, Sungari (Songhua), Zhu (Pearl), and Lancang, which becomes the Mekong in Southeast Asia. The country is a single-party people's republic with one legislative house. The head of state is the president, and the head of government is the premier.