Professor Avramov Publishes Report on China's Rise at Army Cyber Institute

March 31, 2022 Kiril Avramov Asia Policy Faculty Affiliate and Assistant Professor at the Center for Russian Eastern Europe and Eurasian Studies recently published with fellow experts a report on China s rise to global primacy at the Army Cyber Institute By using the Threatcasting foresight methodology the project explores how the People s Republic of China PRC might use information and other soft-power mechanisms to rise as the dominant hegemonic power by The project thus provides various observations such as the CCP s control of narrative to legitimize its form of governance and policy recommendations to the U S and its allies on how to disrupt mitigate or recover from these future threats Read the full report here...

Professor Greitens on the Rising Costs of China's Friendship with Russia

March 14, 2022 Sheena Chestnut Greitens founding director of the Asia Policy Program and associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs spoke with the Financial Times on the rising costs of China's friendship with Russia Despite the economic and diplomatic consequences to China Chinese officials would struggle to recalibrate relations with Russia because Xi has put a very personal stamp on Sino-Russian relations says Professor Greitens To learn more about China's outlook on the war in Ukraine read the full article here...

Professor Greitens' Comments on the Beijing Olympics

February 8, 2022 Sheena Chestnut Greitens founding director of the Asia Policy Program and associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs was quoted in recent articles atThe Atlantic and Bloomberg discussing Xi Jinping s strategy during the COVID- pandemic and with the Winter Olympics While it risks overwhelming the country s healthcare system the COVID- pandemic is opportune for China s leadership to consolidate power justifying draconian measures as public health guidelines Similarly hosting the Olympics in Beijing is opportune to present a positive and apolitical image of China despite its human rights record as demonstrated by the Peng Shuai case and behavior in global politics Under Xi s leadership the core task says Greitens is political security Read more at the links below Peng Shuai...

Rana Siu Inboden Discusses China’s Subversion of the United Nations in Foreign Policy

February 4, 2022 Rana Siu Inboden APP Affiliate and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs was published in Foreign Policy discussing China s subversion of the United Nations' Economic and Social Council s Committee on Nongovernmental Organization Beijing denying NGOs' consultative status at the UN exemplifies both China s ascendance and its limiting of civil society within international institutions Read Inboden s analysis on mitigating China s influence at the United Nations here The full version of the essay appears in the Journal of Democracy...

Kiril Avramov Launches New Website for GDIL

January 21, 2022 In the Global Dis Information Lab GDIL was established at the University of Texas at Austin with a mission to enable interdisciplinary academic research on the global circulation of a broad spectrum of information misinformation and disinformation via digital media By promoting a deeper understanding of national and regional contexts in which information is formed GDIL aims to generate policy recommendations and solutions To support such a mission GDIL may provide faculty and student researchers with the resources necessary for world class research Professor Kiril Avramov an affiliate of the Asia Policy Program is the director of GDIL For more information visit the newly launched GDIL website here...

Congratulations to Professor Xiaobo Lü for Receiving the 2021-22 VPR Research Grant

December 10, 2021 APP Affiliate Dr Xiaobo L Associate Professor at the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin received the - VPR Research Grant which he will use to investigate the origins of strong parties throughthe lens of elite conflict and party-building strategies L focuses on the early stage of party formation of the Chinese CommunistParty CCP and the Kuomintang KMT and investigates their legacies onthe party's mobilization capacity before and after The empirical contribution of this project is a new dataset that willtrace in fine-grained and unprecedented detail the development of grassroots party organizations and fiscal capacity in China from to By developing this dataset L will buttress the theory and enableothers to investigate important aspects of governance in China Hence this project...

Jada Fraser's Research Featured in recent CSIS Article

November 12, 2021 Jada Fraser former undergraduate fellow at the Clements Center co-authored The Case for U S -Japan-ROK Cooperation on Democracy Support in the Indo-Pacific Region withNicholas Szechenyi and Hannah Fodale at the Center for Security and Intelligence Studies CSIS The latest commentary argues for opportunities where the U S Japan and South Korea ROK could cooperate to strengthen democracy in the region despite the two U S allies historical tensions These areas of cooperation include legal and judicial development women empowerment and gender equality and partnerships with ASEAN countries such as Indonesia each of which maximizes the respective ally s resources and strengths The states shared interests and common democratic values should reinvigorate trilateral cooperation not only in the region but in the international arena as...

Professor Greitens Discusses Rising Tension between China and Taiwan

November 3, 2021 Sheena Chestnut Greitens founding director of the Asia Policy Program and Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the LBJ School discussed the rising tensions between China and Taiwan and the United States role in the cross-strait relations Professor Greitens explained that Taiwan is the unfinished business of the Chinese Civil War that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power Greitens indicated that the official policy of the United States toward Taiwan is that its status is undetermined but that the US has always stressed its commitment to a peaceful resolution and is obligated under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide arms for Taiwan's defense She addressed increasing concerns that China will use its growing military and economic power to coercively alter Taiwan s status and...

Sheena Greitens Quoted in AP article on Upcoming Beijing Olympics

October 27, 2021 Sheena Chestnut Greitens Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar and Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the LBJ School was quoted in a recent AP article on the absence of human rights discussions ahead of the Winter Olympics in Beijing The article notes that when Xi Jinping led the International Olympic Committee in the Committee promised that the Summer Olympics in Beijing could improve China s human rights and civil liberties However with the Winter Olympics four months away there are no such promises this year According to the article the Chinese government is using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to limit the number of reporters and visitors who can attend the Games Professor Greitens indicates that these measures will have the added benefit of avoiding...