Hello and welcome back to States of Play - the podcast about the changing world, looking at geopolitics/tech/defence/culture.
In today’s international landscape, it could be argued that no actor is more consequential than China. With its vast economy, state-directed investment strategies, and expanding footprint across Asia, Africa, and beyond, Beijing is using economic tools to build geopolitical influence. This includes everything from port infrastructure and trade agreements to digital infrastructure and so-called debt diplomacy.
Understanding how China converts economic scale into strategic leverage is essential to grasping the dynamics of modern Great Power rivalry. It helps explain why the United States and its allies are reassessing their own economic dependencies—and why the competition now extends far beyond the battlefield. If strategy today is written in trade flows and supply chains, China is writing some of its most important chapters.
To understand the relationship between China’s economic power and its international influence, I’m joined in this episode by Stewart Paterson, a senior research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation and one of the world’s leading experts on the Chinese economy. He is also the author of the seminal book China, Trade and Power: Why the West’s Economic Engagement Has Failed.
(Stewart was of course also my co-host on our What China Wants podcast.)
Many thanks for listening and I’ll be back soon with more insights on the changing world.
Sam
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