SOAS China Institute

21/07/2026

China In Context Ep210: Family and Relationship Trends in China — Across generations, across the urban-rural divide

Available on Apple, Spotify and more: https://soas-china-institute.buzzsprout.com/1669327/episodes/19436527-family-and-relationship-trends-in-china-across-generations-across-the-urban-rural-divide

There’s been much talk recently about China’s demographic challenges: a fast-ageing population, a fall in the number of marriages, and record low birth rates - despite the relaxation of the One Child Policy ten years ago - as well as a rise in divorce rates over the past two decades. So what is going on in Chinese families and relationships? One person who studies this in great depth is Liu Jieyu, professor of sociology and China Studies at SOAS, and co-editor of the journal the China Quarterly, whose new book, Embedded Generations — Family Life and Social Change in Contemporary China, features interviews with more than 200 people from three generations — from those born in the 1930s and 40s to those born in the 1990s and beyond. Based on her fieldwork in villages in three provinces, and three cities from northern to southern China, it focuses on her interviewees’ experiences of childhood, relationships, s*x and marriage, grandparenting and ageing. And it challenges traditional sociological attitudes to the impact of modernization and individualisation on Chinese society, highlighting some unexpected continuities and reinventions of tradition. Professor Liu joins us to discuss her findings.

17/06/2026

China In Context Ep209: World Cup Dreams and Own Goals — Football in China

Available on Apple, Spotify and more: https://soas-china-institute.buzzsprout.com/1669327/episodes/19361598-world-cup-dreams-and-own-goals-football-in-china

Despite the extra places on offer at this year’s expanded FIFA World Cup Finals, the Chinese men’s soccer team once again failed to qualify, continuing a series of disappointments dating back to 2002, when China made its only appearance at the tournament after extra slots were freed up by the host nations, Japan and South Korea, qualifying automatically. Over the past two decades vast sums have been poured into the Chinese Super League, which for a while attracted many foreign stars and managers. And President Xi Jinping has spoken of his dream that the country would host and one day win the World Cup. Yet despite his launch of a major football reform plan in 2015, Chinese soccer is again in disarray — two leading clubs have gone bankrupt, while nine of the country’s top teams were recently docked points, in a corruption scandal that led to the jailing of senior football association officials, club administrators, and even the former national team boss Li Tie. And Chinese state TV only reached a deal to show this year’s World Cup just a month before the competition began. So are China’s traditionally passionate football fans falling out of love with the game? Rowan Simons, author of the book Bamboo Goalposts, and chairman and founder of Club Football Beijing, which trains young players and runs a youth league in the Chinese capital, joins us to discuss the state of Chinese soccer, and whether the country’s World Cup dream might ever become a reality.

27/05/2026

China In Context Ep208: Did China trump Trump? — After the Beijing summit

Listen to the podcast here: https://soas-china-institute.buzzsprout.com/1669327/episodes/19214434-did-china-trump-trump-after-the-beijing-summit

Donald Trump's visit to Beijing, the first by a US president in nine years, not only included plenty of pageantry, but produced some apparently substantive agreements. Aside from China resuming purchases of Boeing planes, beef and soybeans from the US, the two countries agreed to set up boards of trade and investment, and pledged to establish a 'constructive relationship of strategic stability'. And Xi Jinping will visit the US in September. But will this really ease recent trade and political tensions? Melinda Liu, veteran Beijing bureau chief of Newsweek magazine, and Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute and co-author of 'The Political Thought of Xi Jinping', discuss who got the most out of a summit described by President Trump as 'very successful' and by President Xi as ‘historic’.

11/05/2026

China In Context Ep207: China's Middle East Balancing Act — Peace plans, pragmatism and economic prospects

Listen here: https://soas-china-institute.buzzsprout.com/1669327/episodes/19135226-china-s-middle-east-balancing-act-peace-plans-pragmatism-and-economic-prospects

The war in the Middle East has affected China in many ways: as well as targeting Iran, a country with which Beijing has a comprehensive strategic partnership, it has disrupted exports, rattled consumer confidence, and forced the Chinese government to step in to protect consumers from the worst of rising petrol prices. Yet some believe Beijing may benefit from the damage to US global credibility, and China has sought to highlight its role as a responsible diplomatic player, proposing a joint peace plan with Pakistan, and holding talks with Gulf leaders and Iranian officials. And China may also benefit from fresh opportunities, as Gulf countries, with which it has fast growing economic ties, seek to build new port and railway infrastructure to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Yet Beijing’s veto of a Bahraini resolution, opposed by Iran, to guarantee safety of navigation in the Strait at the UN in April was a reminder of the fine line it has to tread in maintaining relations with both the Gulf states and Iran, 90 percent of whose oil sales go to China. Jonathan Fulton, professor of international relations at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, editor of the China MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Newsletter, and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, joins us to assess how recent events in the region will affect China in the longer term.

13/04/2026

Next Mon, 20 April at 5.15pm - Seminar on 'Smashing Statues as Posthumous Punishment in Imperial China' with Dr Desmond Cheung.

The smashing of statues has caught widespread attention in recent years, often in the context of condemning imperialism and colonialism and their enduring legacy by literally bringing down the figures of empire.

But amid these raging controversies, there has been little reference to the different meanings that the creation of statues – and their destruction – might have outside this contemporary anti-imperialist context.

In this seminar, Dr Desmond Cheung will present cases from Hangzhou during the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644), specifically the Shrine of Yue Fei and the Feilaifeng rock sculptures at Lingyin Monastery, where the smashing of statues that occurred within very different cultural contexts might help us to think about the purpose of public statues in a new light. Smashing statues might not only concern the destruction of what one condemns, but also constitute a constructive and meaningful act, a form of posthumous punishment that contributes to public narratives of history.

Find out more and register here:

In this seminar, Dr Desmond Cheung will examine cases of statue smashing in Hangzhou during the Ming dynasty, analysing their significance.

01/04/2026

China In Context Ep206: China's International Ambitions — A Global Opposition Party?

Listen here: https://soas-china-institute.buzzsprout.com/1669327/episodes/18944604-china-s-international-ambitions-a-global-opposition-party

The presidency of Donald Trump has given China fresh opportunities to increase its influence on the international stage. China has long been seeking to expand its role in global governance, proposing initiatives on issues ranging from development and security to the regulation of the internet and AI. It’s also founded the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and is a prime mover in groups including the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. At the recent annual China Development Forum, its premier Li Qiang told an audience of international executives that China was a ‘haven of stability’ in a volatile world. And Beijing, along with Pakistan, has now proposed a peace plan for Iran and the Middle East. Yet China also continues to assert what it sees as its core interests on issues including Taiwan, Hong Kong and the South China Sea, and in its tariff clashes with the US. And many observers have argued that China’s rise makes a conflict with the United States almost inevitable — in line with concepts such as power transition theory and the Thucydides trap. But a new article by two academics proposes an alternative analysis of China’s international role — as the leader of a ‘global opposition campaign’. Its co-authors, Todd Hall, professor of international relations and director of the China Centre at Oxford University and author of the book ‘Emotional Diplomacy - Official Emotion on the International Stage’, and Hannah Bailey, assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a specialist on Chinese global influence campaigns, join us to discuss China’s global ambitions, and the tensions between what they describe as the nation’s overlapping and sometimes contradictory personas.

18/03/2026

China In Context Ep205: Slower Growth, Hi-tech Self-reliance, and 'Ethnic Unity' — China plans the future

Listen here: https://soas-china-institute.buzzsprout.com/1669327/episodes/18870326-slower-growth-hi-tech-self-reliance-and-ethnic-unity-china-plans-the-future

China's legislature this month set the nation's GDP growth target at 4.5 – 5%, the lowest since 1991, and also approved the country's new five year plan, which calls for higher quality growth with an emphasis on self-reliance and technological innovation, and pledges to promote domestic consumption and improve citizens' livelihoods. The National People’s Congress also passed a new 'Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity', which among other things, enshrines the use of Mandarin in schools in ethnic minority-dominated regions. In this episode, Evelyn Cheng, senior correspondent for CNBC in Beijing, joins us to assess China’s economic plans, while Christopher Mittelstaedt, Professor of Chinese politics at the University of Zurich, analyses the political implications of the Five Year Plan and the ethnic unity law.

06/03/2026

China In Context Ep204: China's Economic Plans — and Consumer Challenges

Listen here: https://soas-china-institute.buzzsprout.com/1669327/episodes/18782139-china-s-economic-plans-and-consumer-challenges

China’s legislature is meeting in March to approve the nation’s new Five Year Plan, which aims to promote higher quality growth, and make China increasingly self-sufficient in new technology of all kinds, from AI to semiconductors. Yet it comes against a backdrop of uncertainty and tariff wars abroad, and high youth unemployment and a slumping property market at home. Xi Jinping has pinned his hopes on boosting domestic consumption and has pledged to promote the private economy, which he had previously hit with a major regulatory crackdown. But will this be enough to stimulate the kind of economic revival the government is hoping for? Andy Rothman, founder of the consultancy Sinology LLC, former China-based analyst and diplomat, and now senior advisor to the DGA Albright Stonebridge Group and senior China fellow at the Asia Society Northern California, discusses China’s economic prospects — and the challenges for consumer confidence and private enterprise.

05/03/2026

China In Context Ep203: Xi Jinping and his Father — Power, purges, parenting

Listen here: https://soas-china-institute.buzzsprout.com/1669327/episodes/18699683-xi-jinping-and-his-father-power-purges-parenting

The run-up to the lunar year has been a busy one for China’s President Xi Jinping, with world leaders beating a path to Beijing to meet him; he also found time to purge two of the Chinese military’s top generals, while the outspoken Hong Kong newspaper publisher and democracy advocate Jimmy Lai was jailed for 20 years. And with the erratic trade and foreign policy of the US currently boosting Beijing’s global influence, the 72 year-old leader could be said to be at the height of his powers. Yet even after more than a decade in charge of China, to many people outside the country he remains something of an enigma, rarely speaking to international media. Professor Joseph Torigian, a specialist on Chinese politics at American University in Washington DC, offers an unusual insight into Xi Jinping’s backstory in his new book, The Party’s Interests Come First, a biography of the Chinese president’s father, Xi Zhongxun (1913-2002), who was himself a senior party official, but was purged from the leadership by Chairman Mao and jailed in the 1960s and 70s, before returning to pioneer economic reforms in southern China. In this episode, Joseph Torigian looks at how his father’s experiences may — or in some cases may not — have influenced Xi Jinping’s life and politics.

03/03/2026

A new book by Jieyu Liu offers a comprehensive overview of Chinese family practices, including s*xual behaviour seen through the eyes of three generations.

In China women's s*x lives are still more constrained by social expectations than men, comments Jieyu Liu.