China Governance Lab > Events
Events Overview
Upcoming Events
JAN
30
Book Talk - Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security
How can states use military force to achieve their political aims without triggering a catastrophic nuclear war? Among the states facing this dilemma of fighting limited wars, only China has given information-age weapons such a prominent role. While other countries have preferred the traditional options of threatening to use nuclear weapons or fielding capabilities for decisive conventional military victories, China has instead chosen to rely on offensive cyber operations, counterspace capabilities, and precision conventional missiles to coerce its adversaries. In Under the Nuclear Shadow, Fiona Cunningham examines this distinctive aspect of China’s post–Cold War deterrence strategy, developing an original theory of “strategic substitution.” When crises with the United States highlighted the inadequacy of China’s existing military capabilities, Cunningham argues, China pursued information-age weapons that promised to rapidly provide credible leverage against adversaries.
VIRTUAL
Zoom Webinar
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
FEB
12
Book Talk - The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island-Nation at the Center of the new Cold War
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world and overturned assumptions that large-scale conventional war was inconceivable in the twenty-first century. On the other side of the planet, democratic Taiwan faces the rising threat of a military takeover by China a conflict whose impact on the international community would be catastrophic.
Renowned Taiwan expert and former intelligence officer J. Michael Cole explains how this Pacific nation has become a tinderbox that could ignite a full-scale global conflict. Drawing on unparalleled access to Taiwanese government sources and two decades of on-the-ground observation, he explores the root causes of the conflict between Taiwan and China - from the identity politics that make "peaceful unification" inconceivable, to the rise of Xi Jinping, the most powerful and authoritarian Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. With in-depth analysis of how the war in Europe is influencing preparations by Beijing, Taipei, and Washington for a potential cross-Strait confrontation, The Taiwan Tinderbox is an impassioned plea for the defense of Taiwan as a priority for the international community and the future of democracy.
VIRTUAL
Zoom Webinar
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM
Past Events
JAN
9
The Tai Po Fire — Contexts, Building Safety, and Hong Kong Society
This event will remember the victims of the tragic event. It features several scholars and experts on Hong Kong to discuss the implications of the tragic event on Hong Kong society, building codes, and how the diaspora community could support the victims.
IN PERSON
Room 208N, North House, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, ON, M5S 3K7
12:00PM - 2:00PM
DEC
5
Book Talk - Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation
Why do states start conflicts they ultimately lose? Why do leaders possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? Bureaucracies at War examines how national security institutions shape the quality of bureaucratic information upon which leaders base their choice for conflict – which institutional designs provide the best counsel, why those institutions perform better, and why many leaders fail to adopt them. Jost argues that the same institutions that provide the best information also empower the bureaucracy to punish the leader. Thus, miscalculation on the road to war is often the tragic consequence of how leaders resolve the trade-off between good information and political security. Employing an original cross-national data set and detailed explorations of the origins and consequences of institutions inside China, India, Pakistan, and the United States, this book explores why bureaucracy helps to avoid disaster, how bureaucratic competition produces better information, and why institutional design is fundamentally political.
VIRTUAL
Zoom Webinar
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
NOV
11
Roundtable Discussion - Canada at a Crossroads: Canada-China-US Relations under Carney’s Government
Canada’s foreign relations are at a crossroads. Trump’s re-election has cast tremendous uncertainty over both economic and security partnership to Canada traditionally provided by the US. China that is supposed to provide trade diversification from our overreliance on the US market has proved to be an unreliable trade partner. How should Canada engage or deal with China given the known risks and uncertainty? Should Canada engage with China at all, given its authoritarian nature and record of arbitrary detention? Does these calculation change under Trump 2.0? Can the EU provide a viable alternative to economic diversification and security alliance? Can the Indo-Pacific region provide a counterbalance against potential risks from China? Instead of focusing exclusively on Canada-China bilateral relations, experts from this roundtable will examine these important relations by contextualizing it in the larger context of Canada’s foreign relations with the US, Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
VIRTUAL
Zoom Webinar
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
OCT
9
Book Talk - The Political Logic of Taxation in China
Rapid social economic changes, the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, or even economic liberalization can lead to political instability and the collapse of authoritarian regimes. Despite experiencing all of these unprecedented changes in the past forty years, China under the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership has so far successfully transformed and improved both its governance capacity and its ruling capacity. Governing and Ruling addresses this regime resilience puzzle by examining the political logic of its taxation system, especially the ways in which taxation helps China handle three governance problems: maneuvering social control, improving agent discipline, and eliciting cooperation. Changdong Zhang argues that a taxation system plays an important role in sustaining authoritarian rule, in China and elsewhere, by combining co-optation and repression functions. The book collects valuable firsthand and secondhand data; studies China’s taxation system, intergovernmental fiscal relationships, composition of fiscal revenue sources, and tax administration; and discusses how each dimension influences the three governance problems.
VIRTUAL
Zoom Webinar
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
SEPT
22
Book Launch - Will Global Civilization and World Order Survive the Decline of the West?
Drawing on his new book covering 5000 years of history, Acharya shows that world order has never been the monopoly of any civilization or nation. Core foundations of world order: empire, independent states, diplomacy, peace treaties, inter-state cooperation, freedom of the seas, open trading systems, and humanitarian values, emerged from multiple locations around the world. Yet, centuries of Western dominance have obscured the ideas and contributions of other civilizations to world order. The future world order, Acharya concludes, will not be shaped by one, two or a handful of great powers, but by a “global multiplex,” with many consequential state and non-state actors and in which diversity and interconnectedness will co-exist. While no world order can be free from conflict, the end of Western dominance need not mean the collapse of civilization or world order. Rather it might help mitigate the West-versus-the-Rest divide, and in the longer term, create the basis for a more inclusive world.
IN PERSON
Munk School (The Observatory) - The Boardroom
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
SEPT
4
Panel Discussion - Canada-China Relations Under Carney’s Government: Lessons from Australia?
Canada’s foreign relations are at a crossroads. Trump’s re-election has cast tremendous uncertainty over both economic and security partnership to Canada traditionally provided by the US. China that is supposed to provide trade diversification from our overreliance on the US market has proved to be an unreliable trade partner. How should Canada engage or deal with China given the known risks and uncertainty? Should Canada engage with China at all, given its authoritarian nature and record of arbitrary detention? Does these calculation change under Trump 2.0? Can the EU provide a viable alternative to economic diversification and security alliance? Can the Indo-Pacific region provide a counterbalance against potential risks from China? Instead of focusing exclusively on Canada-China bilateral relations, experts from this roundtable will examine these important relations by contextualizing it in the larger context of Canada’s foreign relations with the US, Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
VIRTUAL
Zoom Webinar
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM