 where you are. My name is Steve Sand. I am the director of the Sova China Institute and I am your host this afternoon. And welcome back to those of you who were with us in the morning sessions and welcome to those of you who are joining us only for this afternoon session. Since it is the second session of today's proceedings, I am not going to repeat the introductions and opening remarks that were made at the beginning of this conference in the morning. But I would like to remind everybody that we are following the picture culture format, which means that it will be 20 slides for 20 seconds each, making a total of six minutes, 40 seconds for each presentation, which is extremely demanding on our speakers. I am very pleased to report that even though this is an experimental format we are using today, the morning sessions went very well with the format speakers were all responding very well to that time frame. As I advise all the speakers, when they start their presentations either with the slides up or when they are speaking, if they are not using slides, I will turn the stopwatch on my phone on and then at the end of that six minutes, 40 seconds, you will hear a single doorbell, which is a reminder to speakers that their time is up, but then there is this being experimental for everyone of us, if you need to have an extra 30 seconds or even a minute or so. If you wish to do so, but please try not to exceed that. And at some point, about seven, a minute or so after the religious times, I will come in and advise the speakers to wind up. We have an extremely wide range of speakers range of today to talk about a whole lot of very important subjects related to China. As I explained this morning, this conference, even though it's been hosted by the China Institute at SOWAS, really is a SOWAS wide operation and we are much more focused on getting how different regions and countries that are being studied at SOWAS respond to and perceive the rise of China, rather than dealing with how China approach the subject itself. The one change to the program is that the final speaker for today, Hazel Smith, a colleague from SOWAS, regrettably has to pull out because she is traveling in Washington DC, and in spite of it being the capital city of the United States of America, she is finding it difficult to be able to have a reliable internet connection where she is. A bit of a surprise, but it's a kind of interesting tidbit, and I thought you should know why she is not being able to join after all. Now, with that, let us start the presentations for this afternoon's session. Our first session will have two speakers. We will have Hassan Karat from the Lahore University of Management Sciences and also Tud Moshtolanski from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, speaking on the important subject of the bell and road as political technology, power and economy in Pakistan and Tajikistan. With that, I hand over to you Hassan and Tud. That is really fascinating and welcomed, Galant, I see that you have managed to join in spite of having some earlier IT issues of joining us. Excellent. So with you firmly in place, let me just hand over to you, Professor Galant Mertens from the James Madison University to speak on the volumetric presence of China in Nepal, your 6 minutes 40 seconds starts when you start talking. Thank you very much, Dr. Tsang, and I apologize for my late arrival just in the nick of time here. I had technical difficulties, which I would think so many months into our COVID pandemic, we would be able to resolve. I'm happy to join and speak here on the volumetric presence of China in Nepal. This presentation analyzes the volumetric growth of China's presence in Nepal from 2014 to 2021 in material, territorial and discursive terms. From physical experiences with earthquake disaster to the symbolic and political power of Chinese infrastructure development, BRI and otherwise, the paper offers presence as a volumetric heuristic to examine how China has become particularly prominent in Nepal in recent years. The analysis is framed by three key periods, material interactions in 2014 and 2015, territorial transformations in 2016-2019 and new discursive deaths reached in 2020 and 2021. I'd like to use territory as a bundle of political techniques employed to measure land and control terrain. This engages the new volumetric turn in the social sciences in adding to that term I want to add presence. So material interactions reached a new level of, well, new volumes between Nepal and China in 2014 and 2015. This includes the first time Chinese FDI exceeded Indian FDI in Nepal in 2014, followed by the earthquakes in 2014. I'm sorry, in 2015 in Nepal. This opened up tremendous new humanitarian space for China to act as a new humanitarian and global actor. This then was followed in 2016 and an ongoing still today with new relationships of diplomacy, connectivity and security. This includes joint statements and transit treaties between Beijing and Kathmandu articulated around the one China policy and new extradition agreements, as well as new aid and loan packages and railroad and energy infrastructures. I'm sorry, my slides were moving ahead of me there. I'm trying to reset them here. In, in 2016, a new Nepal-China joint statement was articulated, which for the first time drew and codified direct connections between international investment and infrastructure development with mutual agreements to border security and territorial, the exercise of territorial power over Nepali subjects, particularly Tibetan populations. The red highlights here identify a number of these key aspects. In 2019, this was more formally linked with Nepal's BRI Belt and Road projects, of which there are nine key projects comprising road development, energy transmission development, and education and outreach programs in addition to a train project. Now, these infrastructure projects largely revolve around what's envisioned as a new multi-dimensional connectivity network between Nepal and China, which Nepal's President Bandari articulated at the second Belt and Road Forum. Soon after the Belt and Road Forum, Chinese premier Xi Jinping made a high-profile visit to Kathmandu, at which a number of other MOUs were articulated and signed in Kathmandu. This was the first visit of a Chinese president to Nepal in recent decades, and it led to a tremendous growth of attention around and energy embracing China's new role as a development actor in Nepal. What I would like to do now is examine some of the discursive power of this event and the discursive depths which have been reached in Nepal as really a dialectical synthesis of material and territorial activities. So the BRI is widely articulated in Nepal as, I'm sorry, as development that can be done differently after Nepal has experienced decades of unfulfilled development promises. However, while the BRI has a conspicuous presence in Nepal, BRI projects across the Himalaya are often absent from Belt and Road maps, and this is a key paradox that I'd like to explore here. Some of the largest and most high-profile Chinese development projects in Nepal in recent years have actually nothing to do with the Belt and Road. These include post-Earthquake disaster reconstruction projects, the development of large new inland dry ports, and the rehabilitation of the major bridge, the Friendship Bridge connecting Nepal and China along the Friendship Highway. Beijing and the Chinese Embassy in Nepal have also undertaken massive earthquake projects in urban context, the redevelopment and restoration of the Hanuman-Doka Palace, the historical Durbar High School, and the expansion of a Chinese business enclave in Kathmandu known as the new China town. None of these projects are Belt and Road, however, they're often associated with Belt and Road in popular Nepali discourse. What are Belt and Road projects in Nepal are rarely depicted in popular maps and are not, are actually suspended right now and are not moving forward. So on the one hand we have the suspension of BRI projects, but the progress of China aid projects. What is, what, why does this matter? What does this paradox mean? Although many BRI projects appear dead on the ground in a material sense, a closer examination shows that BRI agreements help accomplish other territorial work often advanced through discursive means. So even if the territorial outcomes may be more successful than many material initiatives, it's attention to the ladder that we need to attend to. What has happened is a handshake across the Himalayas has evolved into a new form of Chinese extraterritorial power and surveillance in Nepal. The support of Nepal's own government surveillance over Tibetan populations. And why does this matter? Although Nepal is just one relatively small state neighboring China, the material territorial and discursive process at work here resonate with similar dynamics of Chinese investment in development across the world. I believe I've reached the end of my time here. I'm sorry that I was not better organized and able to keep to the time but I appreciate all of the behind the scenes work from colleagues there at SOAS and I look forward to joining the conversation in the forthcoming presentations. Fantastic Galan, thank you very much for that. It's a very thoughtful presentation, which I'm sure we will be reflecting on much. Our next speaker is Dipao from the Carnegie Endangmen for International Peace on Southern Asia relationship with China and he will spell on more specifically how he will focus the presentation. Over to you, Dip. Thank you. I'm just going to try and share my screen in a second. Okay, is this visible? Excellent is on. Okay, wonderful. Alright, so thank you and I'm unlike others I'm going to try and take on a very ambitious project of talking about four countries in six minutes and 40 seconds which is not something I've ever done so hopefully we'll manage to get to the end. Essentially this is a project that we have been working on in Carnegie over the last year and trying to understand the effect of Chinese engagement which we have seen increase in various parts of the world. So what I'm going to talk about our four South Asian countries, namely Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka, and how the engagement has changed in the last decade and what it has meant for these countries. So, when we started the project we found that there was a lot of talk about what China was doing and what you see in front on your screens are basically newspaper headlines from across the region, which talks about projects which talks about but what we did have trouble figuring out is how is this kind of affecting the countries. So right at the beginning, we looked into basically three kinds of dimensions or variables if you please. And we got to those by looking at the kind of questions that were at the center of this project essentially trying to understand if there were any kind of vulnerabilities that were present in these countries. So how was how was Chinese engagement interacting with these vulnerabilities. We divided Chinese engagement and the impact of Chinese engagement along three specific kind of dimensions. We also focused on institutions on the robustness of institutions on civil society as well as on the dynamics of prospective elite elite capture by either Chinese actors or by their proxies and these are the indicators and sub indicators that we kind of broke these three dimensions into which brought us to a set of findings which we found to be common across the region. We also talked to speak about each one of them here but essentially a couple of things one being that we, when we talk about Chinese engagement with countries we kind of think only about Chinese push. What we found is that there is a great deal of pull as well. In terms of these countries when having the option of partnering with various countries they essentially look at partners that can fulfill the kind of requirements, national objectives that they have and in South Asia very often that is those are infrastructure projects, and China has successfully presented itself as dependable and consistent partner, as far as they are concerned. At the same time, we also found that these countries do not necessarily borrow all this from China we found for example, that Bangladesh prefers soft loans over commercial loans and Nepal in fact, prefers grants over any other kind of loans and that reflects in the in the balance sheet in the kind of grants or loans that these countries have taken. Which brings us to how we saw the kind of risks in in these three countries what is significant here, significant to understand here is that, as you will see, the countries are at various places in the kind of vulnerabilities that they display. And it's a sliding scale which basically means that these countries may slide from being high risk to medium risk and back and elections we found a key in this for example if you look at vulnerability three which is on how how influence the elites are, you will find Maldives being medium risk under the current solely administration, and it has moved here from being high risk under the previous, you mean administration and what is important to remember here is that all of these countries are going into elections in the next two or three years so that is a space that will require to be watched digging down a little deeper into these particular vulnerabilities. Generally Nepal continues to be democratizing and that creates a pressure on institutions, which affects the efficacy of the bureaucracy or even of law enforcement agencies. Whereas, while in Bangladesh, the institutions exist but there is pressure on them from cases of domestic corruption. In fact, we heard that a number of projects that were being signed up in Bangladesh which has among the largest number of institutions that are being assisted by China, being even the projects that have been green lit, not even being viable so that's that's a major concern, whereas in Sri Lanka where the institutions are the strongest the issue of elite capture really comes in and creates is has potential to disturb the stability of the institutions. The media also works differently in all of these countries in Nepal for example since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, there has been less and less space on the local media to cover issues such as that of Tibetan refugees. The civil society organizations have less and less space to bring up issues of Tibetan refugees, whereas in Bangladesh you see a lot of self censorship. The ownership of media is opaque which kind of leads to these countries, these these institutions self censoring them when it comes to talking about China. In, as far as the risk to elites is concerned this is highest in Sri Lanka where we have seen as of what says work with China very very closely. It's the lowest in Bangladesh where there is a strong political party in power, however again elections are important, because if there is a question of legitimacy, the party will turn towards the neighbors such as China and India, and what kind of influence China can play on elites will become important there. And I will tell you a little bit about where the relationships have changed in this in this while. In Bangladesh, the economic aspect of the relationship has come up very very fast. Since last year 97% of Bangladesh is exports to China are territory, however, something interesting is, we heard people talk about how they did not have enough means to even sell China, however, as Bangladesh climbs out of being a LDC country that China and Bangladesh are discussing a bilateral trade agreement which Bangladesh says is going to be crucial moving forward. In Maldives this is a relationship that has been very regime dependent it is a new relationship, and Maldives among seems to have the lowest capacity state capacity among the four four countries which leads to concerning governments such as sovereign back loans, where private individuals are given loans, which essentially are backed by the Maldives government and, in fact, earlier this year there was a possibility that an individual who had taken a loan during the earlier administration was about to default, and the Maldives government would have had to bail him out, which luckily did not happen. The question of democratization and the lack of capacity of institutions continues to be the most worrisome. The other aspect that we have seen is a connection between political parties in Nepal and China, especially under the previous communist government where not only were workshops being held between the CPC and the and the government in Nepal we also saw questions of COVID aid being distributed through political parties as given by China coming up. And in Sri Lanka, the issue is a valid capture but our equal issue is equally concerning issue is that of the economic situation in the country and as of now China seems to be the only player who's in a position was willing to in any form bail out Sri Lanka as long as that problem is not taken care of this will continue to be an issue. So where do we go from here, some lessons and recommendations. Now, we found China essentially coming to these countries and asking them what they can do for these countries and that is something that other players might want to do if they want to be more relevant. The other aspect being China again, looking at the national interests or not national priorities of these countries which happens to be infrastructure other players if they want to be relevant might also want to do the same. The question of debt trap keeps coming up what we found that if you when you look at the kind of loans and grants that these countries have taken Sri Lanka seems to be in the press space but the others not so much. And finally, there are vulnerabilities in these countries which are being exacerbated in the way Chinese engagement has worked out capacity building by other actors in case they want to come in and and play a role in these is possibly the way forward. I rushed through a lot. There's a lot more detail in case you want to look more into it more. We have the report up in the Carnegie Endowment website. It's also in local languages. So in case that's that's something that you want to just wire. Yeah, thank you. I'm going to stop there and look forward to your questions. Well, thank you very much. Indeed, I think that's really interesting and helpful. Our next speaker is Alice punctual leaned from the Harvard Academy for international and area studies, and she will be speaking on the subject of being and belonging among Pakistan's China of Chinese diaspora. Over to you, Alice. Thank you. Could you let me know if you see my full screen. Yes, your PPT is up. Okay, is it in full screen. Yeah. Well, yes, I think I'm seeing your next slide as well. Sorry, let me just let me just redo this sorry once one second. Yes, now full screen disappeared. Excuse me. Don't worry, don't worry. Let me just try this again. Okay. Do you see this full screen. Okay, perfect. Okay, so I will be offering a broad overview of a heterogeneous community with rich and diverse personal histories that intersect with the making of contemporary South Asia. My presentation will also take us away from the centrality of the Belt and Road project that is at the heart of Chinese presence in Pakistan today. So let me begin by plotting the trajectories of one interlocutor, who I'll call Sam, and whose personal history and a trajectory is shaped by the political history of South Asia. Born in a family of seven in the mid 1950s in Chitagong, Sam was the son of a tannery and restaurant owner located in Dhaka. While Sam self identifies as Pakistani Chinese, his parents are by nationality Indian. His parents moved from Kolkata home to one of the largest Chinese communities in the subcontinent to Chitagong in the 1940s. And during the nine month long civil war 1971 that led to the formation of a new country Bangladesh, the whole family fled by boarding a cargo ship from Karachi. And from Karachi Sam eventually moved to Lahore where he set up his own restaurant. So I use my personal my interlocutors personal history to show the rich experiences of a community and dogmas to Pakistan, yet whose histories complicates our understanding of Chinese presence in Pakistan. And what follows I will briefly highlight the origins of this community connected by their hyphenated belongings, followed by the occupational fields for which they are known, and ending with some insight into their cultural practices that are syncretic and unique. So some of the earliest Chinese in South Asia immigrated to Kolkata during the British era as early as the 18th century. Many of my interlocutors speak of their parents or grandparents as originating from the Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Hubei and Shandong, who then found themselves dispersed in different places with each monumental historical shift. And by the partitioning of India and Pakistan in 1947, the India China war in 1962 and later the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. Today, these connected communities reside in large cities like Karachi Lahore and Ravel Pindi, but in the city of Karachi in particular the local Chinese are often associated with what a distinct profession as the China than Dan says, taking up the identity of dentistry, a small community of primarily Hubeinis set up multiple dental clinics in the center district of Karachi. The majority of the Pakistani Chinese are Haka speaking. Among the women I interviewed many took up the profession of a beautician or owner of a beauty parlor, offering a range of services typical to local salon such as threading or bridal handy makeup. One of the most well known and prestigious petitions mama interlocutors is a woman named Daniela, hailing from also a Haka family her beauty parlor is located in Islamabad, and has seen the patronage of multiple famous politicians such as Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher and Benazir butto. The Evergreen Wansing Boothouse is a reminder of the Haka Kabla families who have successfully established their business in another niche economy. Others of a similar nature can be found in Lahore, the family that runs a shop in Pindi and Robert Pindi kindly shared the photograph of what the entrance of their shop looked like in the 1970s. The next two slides will likely leave the audience hungry, a localized variant of Chinese food began to take over the culinary scene in major cities of Pakistan in the 1970s. Soups thickened with corn flour and chicken chow mein and the picture of the rights became known as Chinese dishes and were popularized by Haka restaurant owners like Sam's father. Some of the first Chinese restaurants in Pakistan were open in Karachi, the ABC restaurant, for instance, opened in the southern area of Karachi as early as the 1930s. Many others have opened in Karachi Islamabad local system. And these restaurants serve a hybrid Chinese cuisine tailored to the tastes of locals which some have referred to as desi chini kana, which means local Chinese food. I have spoken about some of the economic niches in which the Pakistani Chinese have established themselves. Now I want to turn to some of the cultural practices that express most visibly their identity and belonging. I want to return to my interlocutor Sam here who, despite all of his time spent in the subcontinent maintain a strong connection with the birthplace of his parents. I quote him here I went back to Macian for the first time in 1980 I was 24. My parents and I were the first ones to go to celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday. It took us 14 hours to reach Hong Kong from Pakistan. Since the 1980s he has returned to Macian at least 18 times. These visits had a dual effect. He reconnected with distant relatives but who he otherwise would not interact with, but he also experienced disconnections and witnessing a mode of life and culture that was distant to him as a Pakistani Chinese. Now moving on to the private spheres of my interlocutors lives, the homes of my interlocutors are spaces through which they can establish a sense of belonging and identity. These photos here demonstrate the importance of domestic material culture in creating connections with Chinese culture. While my interlocutors are an ethnic minority they have also chosen to belong to a religious minority. Many of the Pakistani Chinese converted to Christianity over the course of their stay in Pakistan. These conversions often took place after attending missionary schools. The most important of the self is Christian reveals larger social political processes at play. For example, the influence of missionary schools in Pakistan, as well as the salience of religious status. Many of my interlocutors frequent their own their local churches, and the church as a space creates connections between different communities, and allows different minority groups to bond over their faith. One of the members of the Pakistani Chinese community is a maintaining of certain Chinese practices, often in a syncretic manner with Christianity. So many continue to observe a number of popular religious practices related to funeral ceremonies, ancestral rights and Chinese festivals, much like their counterparts in other parts of the world. Christian rights are generally observed at funerals. The preparation of a funeral celebration is performed by the priest, and then the deceased have a place in the cemetery reserved for Christians, as it's an example of the Gora Kabristan which literally means the cemetery for whites in Rava Pindi. Ancestral worship is prevalent among the community within every home there is an altar with a photo of deceased members of the family. And this practice is not without its indigenization around the photo of the deceased one can often find draped a pulong khar, a garland of flowers which is typical of the decorative art typical of the region. So in the last few years, some of my wealthier interlocutors have decided to leave Pakistan and move to North America. Those that have stayed behind are now increasingly subsumed within the CPAC induced rise of Chinese expats migrants and laborers, and yet their experiences and life stories reveal a longer and much more diverse connected history. Thank you. Thank you very much. This is a really very, very interesting presentation on the personal side of this of the links. Our next speaker comes from the New York University in Shanghai. Professor Maria Adele Karaj, speaking on the subject of questioning the debt trapped diplomacy rhetoric, focusing on the Habanj Tota port, which therefore picks up really well from some of the earlier presentations over to you, Maria. Okay, hello, everybody. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm very excited. I used to be a source during my arrest was like a lot of good memories comes to mind. So, let me just go straight to the presentation. China merchants as a great power in the past few decades has been accompanied by a change in rhetoric about the Asian giant, especially now that is expanding its reach with the Belt and Road Initiative. China is increasingly perceived as a threat to Western hegemony and to the international liberal order. Okay, part of this rhetoric includes China debt trapped diplomacy. The idea is that China is strategically trapping recipient country with loans that they can't repay. This is said to increase Chinese leverage and when recipient default China concise strategic assets. Today I'm going to discuss a key example that has been used in support of the narrative of Chinese debt trap to show some of the myth of this narrative in the specific case of the case of the 99 year lease upon one thought afford to China has become the example for excellence of Chinese debt trap diplomacy. It has also become a cautionary tale for countries that have joined or are considering joining the Belt and Road Initiative about potential side effects of receiving Chinese money. This report that has been developed by Chinese state on enterprises from 2017 and depicted as a sex story of the BRI in Chinese media. As we see in this article in the New York Times of 2018, the initial concession agreement for Hanban total has been depicted by media as part of a Chinese attempt to burden countries under heavy debt and size them of their strategic assets. In the paid steps Sri Lanka gave China a controlling equity stake at and the 99 year lease of Hanban total port, which it handed over in December 2017 this is according to the narratives. The BRI according to this narrative comprises part of a grand scheme that creates new dependencies by leveraging Chinese economic gains and bending recipient country sovereign and will the Hanban total for strategically located in the Indian Ocean and an essential part of the maritime Silk Road can be seen as part of the string of pearls, China's geopolitical strategy to develop for project in Pakistan Bangladesh and Maldives and Myanmar to encircle India and secure essential trade routes and energy supply that do not depend solely on the Malacca straight as you can see here in this map. While China's influence over Sri Lanka has increased in the past decades, I've identified in particular three reasons why the narrative of debt trade diplomacy is inappropriate, at least in this case. First Sri Lanka's own government actively solicited the project to the concession agreement was not a debt equity swap arrangement. And third, the percentage of Sri Lanka debt owed to China remains a mere fraction to its overall sovereign debt. So let's go to the first reason so it was not China but the Sri Lankan government itself that saw out the loan for the port. Prime Minister Rajapaksa and other officials after him declared that the government, the development of Hanban total was not a Chinese proposal but rather a request from the Sri Lanka government. And Sri Lanka had initially approached the United States and India, who both refused the citing economic viability concern confirmed by feasibility study so that they already asked but they didn't get approved. And also the development of the four comprised part of Rajapaksa Mahinda Chintana. So the vision for the future launched in 2010 during his six presidential election campaign. In this sense it is hard to justify the idea that China actively plotted to put Sri Lanka into a debt trap. In case for the case that would be more example of debt trap diplomacy, but research has shown that in case of debt insolvency or repayment difficulties China has largely renegotiated its deals. This is the actual agreement. So, also that all that started all this debt trap diplomacy narrative. The 1999 year concessional agreement was signed in 2017 between Sri Lanka Ministry of Port and shipping and Sri Lanka Port Authority and China Ministry of Port which is a China state on enterprises. The agreement set up two separate joint venture companies that oversee the poor commercial and security operation that are auxiliary the factor of China merchant port of China, the state on enterprises and the Sri Lanka Port Authority has just little share of these companies. And according to the agreement China merchant port lease the unbentota port for 99 years and invested up to 1.12 billion in the port, as well as other marine related activities in connection to the port for a total area of 15,000 acres of land. China has not been made available in public, but there were excerpts that were available online. Is it a debt trap. So, the China debt or narrative unbentota was primarily premised upon the idea that concessional agreement was a debt equity arrangement, wearing a company's debt are exchanged for stock or equity. In 2019, however, officials from Sri Lanka declared that the loan agreement for the port owed by the Sri Lanka government to China were separate from the concessional agreement of the port. The agreement was not that that equity swap arrangement as many media described, where Sri Lanka leaves the territory for 99 years to China as a way to pay off the debt. There were separate things. What about Sri Lanka sovereignty that everybody was concerned. So it is also important to note that the rights of China merchant ports has acquired through this concessional agreement to not conclusively give its dominant authority over the port, because the sovereignty remains under Sri Lanka sovereignty. The right side to the least objective includes exclusive right to develop, operate, manage unbentota port and more specifically collecting revenues for all ports and maritime related operation. So the sovereignty of Sri Lanka in theory is supported. What if China used this port for military purposes. So although the rights over the port are divided between China merchant ports and the Sri Lankan government, some have seen Chinese commercial development of an increasing number of ports around the world as you can see in this image as a process of weaponization of the Belt and Road Initiative. The ports especially in light of dual use technology could provide logistical support to Chinese military operation as strategic strong points. And this is definitely a valid concern. But in the case of Sri Lanka, the government has provided reassurance that the final is agreement forbids military activity without its invitation, its invitation and that unbentota port is under Sri Lanka sovereignty. Sri Lanka government, moreover, moved its southern naval command to the unbentota port to further strengthening its and claiming sovereignty also from a military perspective. That is an issue. So although the agreement didn't include a debt equity swap and the Sri Lanka government achievements called there are still issues of China predatory behavior that sustainability and economic viability and returns on the unbentota port project. Many countries, as we can see here, are indebted to China. However, Sri Lanka debt vulnerability preceded and was unconnected to Chinese lending, casting doubt on the idea that China purposefully created Sri Lanka debt problem. The problem is the consequence of existing boring from Western dominated capital market and Sri Lanka structure economic problems. In 2017 Sri Lanka outstanding Chinese loans accounted for only 10%. And today this continue to be the case. In 2019 Sri Lanka's external debt represented 32% of its GDP, but only around 10% was on to China. Please, why not. Yeah, so the reasons for this debt is like economic non viable plan for development but also some of the white elephant project that were produced by China. And so there have been positive effects of unbentota port. And so I'm a little bit become an energy hub and won also some award increase the number of transmission and provided opportunities for for for the people local people of unbentota. Although the number are still far from the Sri Lanka Port Authority aspiration of 2016. And so overall, I don't think that this was this particular case is a good example of debt trap because it's not in the interest of China, forcing countries into debt trap. China is also in a learning curve. So I think when it started, it didn't know very well a lot of things but now it's kind of improving. And there has to be caution more from from the host country. And so to conclude the rhetoric of the debtor diplomacy diplomacy diverse attention from other questions such as how China is actually transforming its rising power into influence and whether Chinese investments in the BRI actually improve a host country economy and the lives of its people. The complex nature and comprehensive scope of the BRI and China influence and reach should not be reduced to one single element beat economic military cultural geopolitical Chinese influence in Sri Lanka. And another country should be examined and analyzed to a broader prism, one that accounts for the recipient country or agency in shaping China's influence they actually affect on the lives of their people. Thank you so much. Sorry for going overboard in this. Thanks. Well, thank you very much, Maria. It's a very interesting and important presentation that you have made. The way with the time being spent on it is just the format, which provides a bit of constraint to how we have to operate. Let's now move on to our first poll after five excellent presentations on these various elements of South Asia's responses to China. We have about five minutes to do the polling. The speakers are not able to vote. Participants are able to vote. So I'm encouraging you all to take part in the polling, and we will watch it with great interest. I have in the meantime, notice that questions has been posed. The first question has been posed is to Alice. Now, we don't have with the picture culture format that we are using we don't actually have scope for online discussions on this face to face on the on the screen. I would certainly encourage speakers to home questions or comments have been made, and if they would like to respond to them and use the Q&A box to respond to those questions being raised, so there will still be scope for discussions and I noticed that Alice is responding to around questions in the Q&A box. In the meantime, please do particularly if you're not a speaker. Participate in the voting. I've noticed a second questions being posed on the Q&A box. I think if you address the questions to a specific speaker you are more likely to get a response than a general questions that any of the speakers can potentially respond. If not necessarily get a bite to that. So if you would like to ask a specific question, please try to direct it to a specific speaker, if possible. In the meantime, I noticed that the pollings is now reaching 67% of participation. Okay, we're now getting 73%. Once the percentage is stabilized and I will close the poll. So if anyone would like to put one's votes to effect. Now is the moment to do this. It looks like that we are stable stabilizing at about 73% of participation rate. So let's see where we are. What is that the first question is really about the Chinese hot power and the second one about soft power for the hot power questions with 5% we see China has been very positive in using his power 37% on balance positive 20% on balanced negative 7% very negative 32% too complex to categorized for the soft power question 3% very positive 25% on balance positive 25% on balance negative and 22% very negative and 25% too complicated to be categorized. It's interesting that in fact, on the basis of the five presentations that opinions are more positive about the actual use of Chinese hot power than the soft power that is coming out from China's involvement in South Asia, which is actually slightly kind of pose we had this morning. And when we end this session we will bring all the polling results together to give us an overall view. With that, let's move on to the next part of this sessions which is more about the Middle East, involving also a bit of central Asia, in terms of its geographical focus. The first speaker for this next part is Jonathan Putin from Abu Dhabi, the CF University, he will be speaking on Chinese on China's soft power outreach into the Middle East over to you Jonathan. So this is going to be a double high wire act for me because it's it's research that I've. It's a first cut at this topic that I've never actually looked at very deeply before. Jonathan you're slightly faint in terms of the volume, are you able to. Sure, is that better. That is better. Thank you. Okay, sorry, new mic. So as I was saying this is a first cut at a topic I've never actually tried to do any deep research on before. And I'm not using slides. So it's a real high wire act for me, trying to manage the six out six minutes and 40 seconds. So the topic is China's soft power projection the Middle East. And this is something that I haven't done a whole lot of work on just because I've always been a little skeptical of soft power as a political scientist because it's really kind of a fuzzy concept that tends to be often whatever people want it to be. It's kind of hard analytically to measure it effectively or to define it very well. But I have a book coming out in a couple of weeks it's the Routledge handbook on China Middle East relations. And one of my colleagues wrote a chapter collecting data on the tools of soft power projection China's using the Middle East. I thought it was pretty interesting so I started thinking more about this and he and I are working on a paper and trying to think about this a little more critically. It's interesting because you can see a lot of people just assume you look at China's presence in the Middle East and it's just kind of taken for granted that China has become a major power in the region and economically that's certainly the case politically it's becoming the case. But I think it's still very misunderstood country in the region. There was a survey data from the air barometer that was released this past January. And it showed that China was viewed more favorably than us and each of the six countries pulled and China was seen as its economic model seen as less threatening to the six countries. I think it's more national interest than the US is, but still China's soft power is quite limited and my experience teaching Emirati students at a local university students have very positive and very superlative views of China but they have almost no knowledge about it. The Confucius Institute which very few students attend most most of the students who attend the Confucius Institute our community outreach, mostly the business community. My students are much more interested in Korea, Japan, India, or the UK. And a lot of that is because they feel that those countries are more their cultures more attractive. And it's interesting to me because when I was thinking about what China is doing in terms of its soft power. There's a lot of elite perceptions of China is very useful regional actor. A lot of assumptions of China at the elite levels being very important for the region, but at the public level, very little understanding of China. So it seems to me there's a question, a gap between tools and targets. And I think that's interesting because typically when we talk about soft power we talk about tools whether it's pop culture education outreach media. That is equally important. When you look at countries like Korea, for example, or Japan or India that are very successful in their soft power outreach. Their tools are kind of organically created and distributed, you know, people love Korean wave how you stuff they love Japanese anime manga and Bollywood film. The tools that are being used in the Middle East by China are mostly state developed tools. So the purpose of this China is trying to use soft power into the region to create or project Chinese narratives about China's development and China's presence. You hear Chinese officials talking about countering media hegemony, which is always code for you know American bias about China's rise. And when they're projecting their their narratives into the to the region, it's often quite ham fisted I would argue, because again, this is state led cultural products. The problem they have I think is that when you look at Chinese cultural products, especially things that will be attractive for a younger audience. The most attractive stuff will be Hong Kong film or Taiwanese pop songs, things that the PRC isn't really a big fan of, you know, and the stuff that's being produced by the PRC is typically done by people that either have concerns about, you know, self censorship, or party, censorship or people watching over what they're working on. So the stuff that's being sent into the region from PRC tends to be very politicized, you know, we see a lot of hip hop songs about belt and road initiative hip hop songs about Xi Jinping and this stuff isn't really attractive to the audience the same way, you know that BTS or a lot of other things are. So in terms of the tools what we see is, you know, a lot of media outreach from from PRC, and you see a lot of educational outreach and certainly those tools are very effective. So for example here in the UAE there's going to Chinese language has been introduced into the national curriculum. The same is happening in Saudi Arabia. You see a lot of scholarships that have existed for for Middle Eastern students to go to China and get advanced degrees. But still at the same time people don't really know China very well. And I think this is a pretty significant gap because again what we see are a lot of stories about China's inexorable rise in the region and what a powerful country it is but at the same time almost nobody really knows much about it. So I think what you see is, is these state led narratives about, you know, China's development model or its economic model or, you know, how China differs from the US. And this is very attractive at the state level, but it isn't really resonating with the popular or the public level. So it's kind of interesting to me to see this gap between the efficacy of tools being used for for official targets versus popular targets because at the popular level it's just not very effective yet, whereas at the at the official level it seems that China's being quite effective in its messaging. But still that doesn't really translate into soft power outreach so much as it does, I guess public diplomacy. I would say that it's been more effective of public diplomacy but in terms of soft power, it's been really quite ineffective. That looks like six minutes and 40 seconds so I'll stop here. And thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. Thank you very much Jonathan for keeping within the time frame and I think it's a very interesting counter pose to what we had earlier in the afternoon in terms of the views in the South Asia part of the presentations. Let's move to the next speaker from one of my colleagues. David, who is at the both the Chinese to and the politics department, and she is speaking on the subject of shifting societal responses to China's bell and road initiative across Central Asia. Over to you, Rafa. You are muted. You have unmuted but I can still not hear you. Let me see whether if I mute you and then unmute you with it works. Okay. I still can't hear you can others here here, but Rafa. Are you able to help with this. I think I don't think we are hearing you. No, we're not hearing you. Try to say something. I don't know we're not hearing you. I think what we would do is that I will ask a nooks to come in first, and then I'll ask our keys to contact you directly to see whether we can work out the technical glitch there. I think it is okay with you. Anush, if you are able to make the presentation now, and then I will come back to. I'm going to start with Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Thank you, first of all, for inviting me and also to the China Institute at SOAS and all your colleagues for hosting us so ably. It's been such a fascinating event and I've learned a great deal from my co-panelists this afternoon. I'm delighted to be here. And it's a hard act to follow Jonathan, I have to say as well, given the material that he's covered. So let me make three introductory comments and then I'll race through the rest. The first three introductory comments are the following, built on power. But power for me has three dimensions to it in this context. It's fuel, it's geopolitics, and it is soft. Secondly, you can draw a direct line from China's four modernizations, which were launched in late 1970s to open up its economic system to its deeper engagement with the MENA region today. And thirdly, China's future relations with the Middle East region accelerated following its real great leap forward, which was in 2001 when it joined the World Trade Organization that arguably transformed China's economy in terms of its development, in terms of the growth trajectory, but most importantly from this region's perspective in terms of its rapid industrialization. So that leads me to then start my presentation with the subtitle for one of the better term than 1993 moment. Why is that important? Because this marks the period of growing relations between China and West Asia, which was being cemented on China becoming a net importer of oil for the first time. That was significant. Not only was indicative of China's rapid development and industrialization and that the rest of the world was dumping its industries on China, but also that it was also likely to become more dependent on oil imports, particularly from this region. So China's double digit economic growth of the 1980s onwards, inevitably in my view rates China's reliance on imported oil from the Middle East. Soon China was the world's largest oil importer, with between 40 and 50% of its oil coming from just nine Middle East countries. Think about it. And of those nine, four of them, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and to a lesser extent switching between Qatar and Kuwait, these countries made up the bulk of China's oil imports from the region. So China was in effect dependent on a handful of countries in a very unstable region geopolitically. As a consequence, a new interdependency was emerging as oil exporters were also needing the Chinese market for their main export, that is to say oil. Why is that? Largely because America became much more self-sufficient through its fracking industry that was taken off and also that Europe, Japan and South Korea were becoming stagnant oil importers. They were either using new technologies, renewable and so on, or because they had taken so much of their industry to China, there wasn't the same need for oil imports from the Middle East. But the Middle East countries were still dependent on oil exports for the prosperity and indeed economic development. And as a consequence, they also became dependent on China continuing to consume the oil that produce. That was a classic example of an emerging interdependency, Steve. Energy exchange has paved the way for a flourishing trade and investment partnership between China and the MENA region. And also, of course, what this has led to is a growing presence of China, not just as an importer, but as an investor, as a trader on the ground and as a cultural emerging cultural icon with very new features for this region. The bulk of oil output of West Asia headed towards China and oil import became one of the largest single items of China's overall import bill. That is really important because China was now having to use much of its export income to compensate for the oil that was coming from a handful of countries from the Middle East. There was an emerging circular motion here that was tying China's development to oil imports from this region and the need for it to continue to expand its economy to maintain the debt that oil income was generating. In terms of self-power, that is to say China's diplomatic presence as well as its economic presence, we can point to a number of features that have emerged in recent years. And these are very much what has created the conditions for deeper China Middle East engagement. The first point to make is that China is now a major trading partner of 10 Middle States of different sizes and shapes. That is very important. Secondly, China is now the largest direct foreign investment investor in the MENA region, investing in a whole host of projects in either as turnkey, but also as partner in local development projects. Thirdly, China has signed a series of bilateral partnership agreements with a large number of Middle East countries, including what it likes to brand and its comprehensive strategic partnership with three important Gulf states of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. And it has done so at the height of geopolitical tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Fourth, China led the establishment of what is known as the China Arab State Cooperation Forum in 2004 to deepen its emerging relationship with the region. As far back as 2004 arguably, China was very conscious of the importance of this region to its future development. China, therefore, now has extensive links with Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel and 12 other Middle Eastern countries at the same time. What is important in that, of course, is that some of these countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel, Egypt and Iran, have actually got deep differences of their own. And yet China has been able to establish what are cordial, if not indeed warm relations with these countries at the same time. And China is busy investing and developing their infrastructure, industry and in major construction projects. The greatest of which, of course, is the building of New Cairo, of the 6,000 years of Egyptian civilization in Egypt. It's significant to me that China was selected as partner for that. And then, of course, Steve, there is the BRI, which is bringing a whole host of other interactions between China and this region. But the big picture for me remains the following. That this has happened in less than one generation. The West built its domination of the region in about 150 years and dominated the region for virtually all of the 20th century. In 30 years, China has emerged as the largest trading partner of most of the economies of this region, as a larger investment, as the largest importer of its oil, but also with the greatest presence economically in this region. That leaves me with just one final comment, Steve, as time is running out with two. There are tensions as a consequence of this rapid transition at this level between China and the West. Most importantly, though, between America's perceptions of China's role in what was always seen as America's backyard. I'll stop there. Thank you, Steve. Thank you very much, Anush, for this very important presentation, which underlies how much we need to pay attention to the real successes of Chinese engagement approach. Bravna, are you back ready? Over to you. I hope that the technical issue has been resolved. I can see your PPT. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, and I can hear you as well. OK, just please give me a second, because I had to use a different computer. Of course. I won't start the clock until you. Yeah, just your slideshow. Just give me a couple more seconds, please. Don't worry. Excellent. OK, here we go. So I will talk about the changes in the societal responses to Belt and Road Initiative across Central Asia, though my talk will focus primarily on Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The launch of BRI in 2013 in Astana was a recognition to the geostrategic centrality of Kazakhstan and its importance as a transport corridor. And it also emphasizes economic potential, particularly attractive, then, was the rhetoric of, sorry, was the rhetoric of oneness, connectivity, complementarity, and win-win cooperation. So this was a new language for the region. President Nazarbay was very quick to align Kazakhstan's development strategy Nolizol with the Silk Road Economic Belt as the BRI was known then. BRI also raised considerable hope and expectations in the region. So Kyrgyzstan saw that as an opportunity to establish connectivity and energy independence for Uzbekistan. It was the chance to revive the ancient Silk Road and position itself at the center of trade, tourism, and transport connectivity. Tajikistan, we already heard this morning how Tajikistan also sought aid and legitimacy for the regime. And Turkmenistan, which did not sign BRI because it maintains its neutrality, but it happens to be the largest supplier of gas to China. So what about BRI and its perception in the present context? We need to look at the various unanticipated events which have happened since, the fading potential of BRI, also a number of questions that are being raised, and the lack of clarity about future. So China was seen as an alternative to Russia and to West also to a certain extent. But what we see is how the emerging Sino-Russian partnership has and condominium has led to the weakening of Central Asian states and the centrality of this Sino-Russian axis. There's also declining Western role and influence. There is consolidation of authoritarian regimes in the region, which also point to the fragility of these regimes and the lack of legitimacy of the regimes. We also see growing personal informal ties between Central Asian ruling elites and the Chinese leadership. And finally, the uncertainty caused by COVID and the future of connectivity and people-to-people ties. Here is an example of the goodwill that exists and that's cultivated between the ruling elites. So President Tokai, when he assumed the leadership in Kazakhstan in 2019, and Sapa Japarov, who also is the latest president of Kyrgyzstan, being welcomed by Xi Jinping. Over the last two years, in particular, we have seen a wave of anti-China demonstrations, protests, and mobilization in both these countries. Kazakhstan, in particular, since 2019, has seen an activation of anti-China protests. The presidency of Tokai after Nazarbayev resigned has also provided an opening to voices of reforms and democracy. There have been a number of issues on which the protests have taken place, about the transfer of various 55 industries from China to Kazakhstan, on which there was a lot of misinformation, also concerns about the growing control of China over energy resources. The issue of land lease to foreigners in which China is particularly a sensitive issue. And finally, the sensitivity about Xinjiang. Kyrgyzstan has seen routinization of these protests emerging as seen by various conflicts in the bazaar in workplace. Then 2018, there was a scandal about the $385 million renovation of Bishkek Power Plant by a Chinese company. And the involvement of then-president and prime minister in a number of other government figures in the corruption scandal in which these people were found out to be lobbying for China and currently trials are going on. And more recently, the protests against a planned $275 million logistic center in Narin, in North Kyrgyzstan, very close to China. And there is also hysteria about Chinese migrants taking over. Just very quickly, you have the images about the protests in Kazakhstan in 2016 on the proposed land lease law. The law was very complex, but it was perceived as something enabling China to acquire control over Kazakhstan's lands. The opposition unified civil society activists use considerable mobilizational skills and also disinformation to mobilize people. And finally, this put pressure on Nazarbayr to put moratorium on the law, five-year moratorium on the law. So Kaev came to power and once again, he has extended the moratorium and there's no proper debate on this, but there are many legal loopholes still, still which allow China to gain access to the land. Again, you have these images of protests in both Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Particularly sensitive issue is Xinjiang and the persecution of ethnic Kazakhs from China who have relocated to Kazakhstan. There are close skin connections between them and over the last few three years. Various protests have broken out in which people are demanding the release, information and the release of their kin from the so-called re-education camps and vocational centers. And the Kazakhstanian government has been caught between domestic pressure, the demands to protect dignity and well-being of ethnic Kazakhs and the friendship with China. Here you see the protests and then the decision to postpone the construction of this logistic center in Kyrgyzstan. So what we see is that there are this strengthening of the elite bonds, but there is also at the same time considerable misgivings within various strata of societies. So the ties between the elites, they are defined by tribute, patronage, also financial rewards as well as ideological support to the elites in power. At the same time, there are many intra-elite differences. So members of the government in both states privately express concerns about China's growing role and at the same time publicly they pledge support and the proclaim solidarity. So if we try to define what are the pro-China and anti-China factions among the ruling elites and business in society, we find that they are considered considerably closely entwined because on the one hand, there is also recognition that China currently presents the best hope and cooperation with China, business with China is inevitable. And at the same time, there are many, many concerns. So we find the same group of people, the same group of elites depending on the context and the issue articulating both pro and anti-China positions. And finally, again, is the inability of the regime to speak up on Xinjiang, which puts it in a very fragile and vulnerable position. So to conclude finally, how do we look at these anti-China protests in these two countries? First and foremost, they reflect popular distrust among people of their own governments. They also reflect the anger at lack of credible information and accountability. And China has become a scapegoat for a broad set of grievances articulated by the people. We also find that in many ways, government and different groups in government tolerate these protests and also encourage them in order to put covert pressure on China. So what is really at heart here is also the ability of the government to manage these anti-China sentiments and popular opinion and also the mismanagement, despite the government's best efforts to control and contain these opinions that there are, the situation remains out of its control, which has significant repercussions for the rhetoric about people to people tie and soft power of China and acceptance of China in the region. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Grafana. That's really fascinating. And I think it's interesting that in the whole day's presentations until now, this is the first time that we girls came up as a significant subject in the presentations, even though quite a few countries that are strongly or regions that have strong Islamic presence have been covered before you. I think we reached the points that we will have our second poll in this afternoon. So Aki, if you could put the polls up and then we will have a quick poll before we have the final two presentations. Please do participants join in with the poll. Okay, we have 64% responses by now, but we did get a bit over 70%. So some of you obviously are still making up your mind. Let me just encourage you a bit to put your thoughts to the questions. It looks like we are stabilizing at 64% at participation. So I'll close the poll now with our five minutes. And what we have, we suggest that about 2% agree that Chinese power is very positive, 30% on balance positive, 38% on balance, not positive, 10% not positive and 18% too complex to be categorized focusing on Central Asia and the Middle East. In terms of the soft power side, 2% very positive, 22% on balance positive, 36% on balance negative, 18% negative and 22% too complex to categorized. So the too complex to categorize number has fall down quite a bit for this polls compared to all previous ones in fact. We will park that for the moment and then we'll come back to see what the overall picture is for all in due course. In the meantime, let's move on. And our next speaker is Muhudin Seng Wuxi from the University of Dias Salaam speaking on I think really important subject which is afro-Chinese cultural exchanges, a one-way traffic question mark. I think obviously the punctuation there is critical. Over to you Muhudin, Muhudin I'm not hearing you. Hello, can you hear me now? I can hear you but we can't see you if you could put your camera on. If you don't mind I won't turn on my video because there's a blackout here so. Okay, in which case please do just go ahead and then you won't be able to see. Don't worry, we are as so as we do understand that in different parts of the world there are times when connections and power supplies can be problematic. So please just go ahead and when you start I will start the clock. If you move to start of the slideshow. Okay, so hello everyone. I'm going to talk about afro-Chinese cultural exchange and whether question whether it's a one-way traffic culture because culture has been a very important element in the China Africa cooperation and have seen increasingly in recent years that cultural exchanges have really, really taken sense of stage in the relationship. But I want to start with by this quotation from Hougu Suno Alabahu in the 70s. He said all the whole Chinese policy in Africa has resulted in the diplomatic initiative of the People's Republic of China rather than of the African states themselves. So this is, I think it depicts an asset of China which is sort of like defining the relationship between China and Africa. And this is just an impression of what China is doing in Africa is from a recent wipe by the Chinese government. It cuts across many sectors, security, medical cooperation, party-to-party relations, health sector as well. And because we're talking about culture, I think it's important to understand Chinese soft power and because for China soft power is anything except the use of military force but centered around the idea of culture. Of course it have other soft power resources, foreign policy, political values and aid but everything is centered around promotion of Chinese culture. And talking about promotion of Chinese culture, you have internally it's expected to bring about like internal cohesion where outside is about promotion and spreading Chinese culture outside China and in this context to Africa and African countries. And then here I'm just trying to connect the Belt and Road Initiative and culture because there's certain elements of culture in the Belt and Road Initiative. As you can see on the screen here, these are just some of the initiatives that I also have a link to with this Belt and Road Initiative. But if you're looking at the presence of Chinese culture in Africa, you have to start with the Confucius Institute and now you have 59 Confucius Institutes in Africa in 44 African countries and 41 Confucius classrooms. This is significant but you might also observe that the learning of Chinese language in Africa is also moving beyond the Confucius Institute. And now you have some governments integrating mandarin in the school curricula like in Tanzania, there have been efforts in Uganda as well, Kenya and in South Africa. So it's not just for Confucius Institute, now it's going beyond the Confucius Institute. And of course cultural, first of all, the Chinese New Year celebration, this was something unknown to many Africans many few years ago, but now it's a very colorful annual event. This one was in Tanzania picture. Become a very important event in the national calendar of many African countries. And there's a growing appetite for Chinese martial arts, especially among young people as well. For example, the annual Wushu Tournament. This is usually done in an annual event in many African countries but sometimes it's organized regionally in the East African community where they have a regional tournament for the Wushu Chinese martial arts. And here I was trying to link China in education and cultural promotion. So here are the University of Arizona Library built by China. And then just sitting next to it is a Confucius Institute, the one you see I've psyched in red. So you see education and culture going together. I look at African students in China as vehicles of promotion of Chinese culture because when they come back in their respective countries they come with certain Chinese values and therefore I think they're playing a very important role in the promotion and spreading of Chinese culture in Africa. And the number has been growing over the years. And then also you have Chinese TV sobs which have been dubbed in African languages such as Kiswahili and Hausa. And the start times has played a very important role in this regard. This is a Chinese company that provide digital satellites, television services and has made significant inroads into Africa. Also there are some cultural presence, African cultural presence inside China. This is a primary school in Jijian province. They have a special program focusing on African cultures. It's impressive to see these kids being introduced some elements of African culture at a very young age and being there myself and it looked very impressive. And some African language also have managed to find spaces in Chinese Highland institutions like Beijing University. They provide courses in Kiswahili and Hausa as well as China International Studies University where they offer a degree in Swahili language. I think this is a very significant development in the exchange. And this is a Tushan High Natural History Museum where they have a section for Tingtinga painting. And Tingtinga painting is famous painting from East Africa, particularly Tanzania. It has found its way in the Chinese Museum in this case, in Shanghai. But also we have African artifacts in many museums across China. Now you look at the exchange is kind of skewed where you look at China as an initiator, as the founder and it has certain leverage on the narrative of the exchange. In Africa sometimes being the initiator but less on the narrative and less finding and sometimes no finding at all. And I think it puts Africa at a disadvantage. And then there have been also cultural misunderstandings like the Blackface incidents which caused the angry reactions from the global African community. And this is something that we need to take into consideration because Africa, just on the continent was to talk about the African diaspora and the experiences in the arrested relations can be very different interpretation from those in the continent as well. The Black Civilization Museum in Karp, Senegal which was built by China. I think it's an example for an African country has its own cultural ambition, cultural aspiration. And then China comes with the funding and then kind of complements the local ambition, cultural ambition in this case of Senegal. And therefore Senegal, this kind of like win-win situation. The Mandela Institute was an idea by Adam Godomo to the South African government, like to establish a Mandela Institute as an answer to the Confucius Institute. Of course it hasn't happened but it was the idea was to urge African countries to step up their agency and be on equal footing with China in these exchanges. So I'll stop there and there's more then in the future in the discussion. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much, Muhudin. It was really interesting and important to get the perspectives of how the Chinese efforts to protect soft power is going down quite positively in different parts of Africa. Let's now move on and swing to the other side of the world. We've unloaded most of the East Asian panels at the morning session because of the time difference with speakers from that part of the world. But this is a speaker who is with a colleague at SOWUS, Quesadus Kirsch, who is an excellent scholar on Japanese culture and literature who will be speaking on the subject of waking up the neighbor, visualizing China's economic rise in Japanese fictional media. Over to you, Chris Lewis. Thank you, Steve, and I'm sharing the screen now. So, right, so I'm at SOWUS. It's a great pleasure for me to be presenting at home, so to speak. I'm in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and I actually teach cinema, not literature. Screen studies, sorry. So you will see lots of visuals and nots to popular culture. So I am not a political scientist, so my presentation and its style and content is very different. So please bear with me. The research I'm presenting today has been published already respectively in the process of being published. So I will particularly cover how Japan looks at China and there is a slight side knot to the inspiration for the title because it is very much about how Japan was sleeping through China's rise, as I would perhaps like to postulate here. In, if we need, if we look at, oops, excuse me, if you look at Chinese domestic, cross domestic product and I have started the research, basically the comparison when China reappeared in Japan's post-war imagination in 1989. You can see that there is until 2005 and then there was a long period of non-representation. So you can see it is a linear graph upwards more or less in a very clear upwards trajectory. 1989 marks the time when the rise and the years beyond between 2005 and 1989 becomes the first time. Very visible in how China is actually getting, is actually getting more prominent on the world stage and sort of viewed from Japan, the other economic giant in East Asia. It was sometimes seen with distrust and sometimes seen not so. At the same time, the Chinese, sorry, the Japanese cross domestic product went on the roller coaster, it has been called a stackflation. So mirroring approximately the same time, you can see the first dent in the up to then pretty rapid economic growth and it started growing again, it went back down and so on. So two very different trajectories. But that's not all, at the same time, we have a lot of controversy between Japan and China emerging also in that particular period of time, one of them being Yasukuni shrine where 14 class A war criminals are enshrined as martyrs and whenever somebody visits, it becomes a massive diplomatic issue. Another one being the disputed islands, somewhere west of Naha in Okinawa and east of China, so with unclear ownership between Japan, China and Taiwan. All of these events and controversies go back to the time of Japanese imperialism when Japan tried to expand its empire throughout East Asia. In many ways, this meant just exchanging the colonial master from usually British, French one to a Japanese one. At that time, you could get an awful lot of representation of sign of Japanese relations, particularly in around Manchuria with the exemplar being Lee Kodan's films here, for example, Shina no Yoru in which China was always feminine female and they need to be dominated from Japan. This is not a broken slate. After the end of the war, there was nothing. There was no representation for a long period of time because China and Japan were divided by the Cold War and there was absolutely no engagement and therefore no interest and barely any Chinese characters appearing anywhere. They started reappearing, as I already mentioned, in 1989 and they followed very clear representation patterns and they were always in the same kind of ways. This is the first film, making Nosuka, the Beijing watermelon, that was released in 1989 and showed Chinese students in need of Japanese aid. But with students coming into the country, you also get the issue around foreign criminality. So we move very quickly from Chinese students to the Chinese mafia that are trying illegal dealings in Japan and in many ways being problematic or seen as problematic as the Gaijin Hanzai Uda Failu shows. This was a magazine that was published in 2007 and that very clearly gives, as you can see here, China the award as being the most dangerous nation for Japanese internal security. At the same time, however, there was almost like a counter trend for Japanese businessmen to go to China and therefore find healing very symbolically in the bird pupil in China, giving the flailing at that time, Japanese economy wings to fly again and to be rediscovered in China. And at the same time, but very late, but later on, you had Chinese stars come appearing on Japanese television here, Fei Wang falling in love with the Japanese character and having a happy ending, which is very unusual when it came to love stories between Chinese and Japanese characters. And then again, from there onwards, we go into non-representation. The controversies around Yasukuni Shrine and Senkaku had triggered so many anti-Japanese protests that the fictional dream worlds were no longer adequate to represent and for a long time, China again disappeared off the screens, only for it to re-emerge this time in 2012 as a military threat in the film Final Judgment. It is never mentioned that the country that is actually attacking and invading Japan is actually China, but it is very clear in terms of language and uniforms that this is what they are alluding to. But at the same time, going again back to the empire, you can see a certain nostalgic gaze towards what happened in Manchuria emerging like a time of Sino-Japanese friendship that was not troubled by all of the controversies, particularly on television in and around 2015. The most recent example of China appearing on Japanese television is actually also broadcast to us and that is Japan Sinks, People of Hope, in which Japan very much stands there begging for immigrants to be allowed to enter. China, as the Japanese archipelago is sinking. So with this very rough ride, you can see that the relationship in terms of media representation was always unbalanced and Peter Grease has put this in a very nice sentence. They tended to view that bilateral relationship with a past, present or future, predominantly in hierarchical terms with the only question being who was superior when. So these worlds, however, also permitted Japanese audiences to kind of not quite see how China was rising because it was constantly represented as inferior and never on the same terms and never at high level. Therefore, when controversies have merged, they are always very surprised that these are there. What might the future bring? I guess we're going to have to see. Japan Sinks is still running. It's not yet concluded to what extent China will get a bigger part or not remains to be seen. And with that, I think that's six minutes, 40 seconds. So thank you, Steve. Thank you, yeah. Thank you very much, Chris. I think it's absolutely amazing to see how China is presented in the Japanese films. I think the use of the blank screen was really a very nice touch there. With that, let's have our last poll and then we will have all the aggregate of the post before I wind up. Please, if we could try to do the post as quickly as we can, then we will have a bit more times to take stock of all the post before we finished at half past three. We have 62% participation so far. I think we average a bit over 70%. So I would encourage you to put your responses in as quickly as you feel comfortable. 65, Steve, 68, 69. It looks like we have stabilized at 69 for a bit now. So I will draw it to a close and then in the meantime, Aki will try to add all the polls together so that we have a poll of polls result in a minute. What we have for this particular part of the sessions is that we're about 4% saying that China's use of power is very positive. 30% on balance positive, 37% on balance, not so positive, but only 11% negative, clearly negative and 70% a bit difficult to categorize. For the soft power bits, 2% clearly positive, 24% on balance positive, 39% on balance, not so positive, 24% not positive, only 11% too complex to categorize at this stage. So Aki, if you could share with us overall result from the whole days of polling, I think we will probably have some interesting results that we can see. Yes, thank you. Now, what we have here is that on average, we have 70% of people responding and 3.66%, less than 4% would see China's using its power as very positive, 34.5% generally positive, so mix it about 40% on the positive side. On the negative sides, we are looking at about 23, over 23% on balance, not negative, just less than 12%, clearly not positive, therefore negative, and 26, 27% too complex to categorize. So we on average actually see China's use of power, both in terms of its hard power and soft power, as being more positive than as being negative. I think that is something which I think is interesting, particularly in the wider context of the deteriorating rate of the data, of the deteriorating relationship between China and the United States and how much the image of China has turned negative in rich capitalist, democratic Western countries in Europe and North America, including Australia and New Zealand, as I hope, but in the parks of the world where so was focused our study, where there are many regular day-to-day context with China, whether the Chinese focus quite a lot of their BLI projects and engagement, positive active engagement, they are actually getting more positive responses than they are getting negative responses. It's sometimes almost as a matter whether we understand soft power in the way that Joe Nye has defined it, something which simply is there and make people and get people to admire you or the Chinese approach to soft power, which is that they proactively go out to project that soft power and sometimes mixing a fair bit of what in Western scholarship we now call sharp power with soft power, but they are actually getting a good run of their approach in important parks of the world. Well, obviously, if they are the parks of the world that so was studies by definition, they are very important parks of the world. What I think also come across to me as very interesting for the whole date is that the morning sessions and the afternoon sessions don't really completely go in, compete parallel. I think if you have missed the morning sessions, I would encourage you to see whether you can find time to go on our website and find the recording for the morning sessions. Likewise, people who attended the morning sessions but not able to attend the afternoon sessions, I think there's a lot to be said about attending, watching the recording to give us a much rounder sense of how the world from East Asia, Japan on the East all the way through the West coast of Africa look at China and interact with China. And I would like to now draw this conference to a close and thank all of you, all the speakers who have kindly shared their thoughts with us and their insight, some joining us at very inconvenient time from many different parts of the world and for support from colleagues as so was both academic and administrative. And also to thank all of you who are participants, particularly for sharing your thoughts with us in the polling. I hope that this is the beginning. It has shown to us how valuable it is to engage in this kind of conversations with colleagues across the world. And I hope that when the pandemic is over, there will be opportunities when we can bring some of you at least to show us to have extended conversations and a lot more time for actual debate engaging on the specific insights that you have so kindly share with us. Well, thank you very much and goodbye from me.