China’s Ideological Spectrum

A Sinica Podcast

By Kaiser Kuo & David Moser on April 20, 2015

Last week, Harvard doctoral student Jennifer Pan and MIT graduate student Yiqing Xu co-released a paper, “China’s Ideological Spectrum,” that has garnered a tremendous amount of attention in China-watching circles. And the reason for the fracas? Their paper uses data from the Chinese Political Compass to try and map out Chinese ideological tendencies and surprisingly discovers that China’s ideological spectrum may be more uni-dimensional than it seems.

Chinese Cultural Diplomacy in Africa

A China in Africa Podcast

By Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more on April 18, 2015

The Chinese government has spent billions of dollars in Africa on public diplomacy initiatives that are intended to improve the country’s image. Central to that strategy is the growing network of Confucius Institutes (CIs) spread across the continent that are designed to introduce Chinese language and culture to the African masses. Today, there are over 40 CIs in Africa but, despite their good intentions, these institutes attract significant controversy.