As part of YCAPS’ Indo Pacific Maritime Hour webinar series, four speakers were hosted in an off-the-record discussion regarding their recent publication, Decoding China, available at www.decodingchina.eu. Stephen Nagy moderated the event with the four authors of The Decoding China Dictionary. Malin Oud began with an overview of the history of the Rule of Law and its role with the Chinese government. She addressed the discourse of power internally and externally. Katja Drinhausen discussed the notion of “Good Governance” and recent changes to its meaning. Jerker Hellström spoke regarding “Peace”, and what this means to China’s leadership. He moved on to the concept of “Sovereignty”, comparing and contrasting the western understanding of the term vs. that of the PRC. Hellstrom closed with discussions of the Chinese leadership and State sovereignty claims. Marina Rudyak expanded upon the terms “Multilateralism’ as a form "multi-bilateralism" and the PRC's calls for ‘Cooperation’ as a Win-Win. For the Q&A, Stephen Nagy asked each presenter to focus on certain terms. The robust segment carried on for the last 40-minutes, and included questions from the engaged audience which were eloquently answered by the panelists.
Patricia Yarrow for YCAPS