This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Raffaello Pantucci, co-author of the 2022 book Sinostan: China's Inadvertent Empire, which examines China's presence in Central Asia. Based on extensive travel and interviews undertaken both before and after the tragic murder of his co-author, Alexandros Petersen, in 2014, the book is a highly readable if difficult to categorize melange of analysis and anecdote, history and travelogue, and it paints a complex portrait of China's extensive efforts to build out a network of commercial and cultural ties throughout the pivotal region.

3:48 – Remembering the late Alexandros Petersen

9:35 – Xinjiang’s importance in Beijing’s Central Asia policy

13:36 – Central Asian states’ reactions to Xinjiang internment camps

24:39 – Assessing China’s soft power in Central Asia

37:10 – BRI: strategic calculus or ad-hoc scramble?

43:32 – Evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

49:45 – China’s characterization of terrorism

54:45 – The SCO today and China’s growing security footprint

1:03:03 – China in Afghanistan

1:10:36 – Current status of the BRI

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Raffaello: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan; The Geographical Pivot of History by Halford Mackinder

Kaiser: Volt Rush by Henry Sanderson

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