Who’s Afraid of China? – UK Events

Posted: September 17th, 2011 | No Comments »

My latest Asian Arguments author Michael Barr is doing a couple of events in the UK to promote his new book Who’s Afraid of China: The Challenge of Chinese Soft Power. Details below.

Newcastle

Café Politique: Who’s Afraid of China?

Michael Barr (Politics, Newcastle University)

Location: Urban Café, Dance City, Temple Street, Newcastle, NE1 4BR

Time/Date: 19th September 2011, 19:00 – 21:00

What role does China play in the Western imagination? Michael Barr will discuss how China’s rise as an alternative model to Western liberalism has created a fear that developing countries will stray from Western standards of democracy, transparency and human rights. He will challenge us to rethink our ideas on modernity, history, and international relations.

London

Chatham House China Programme: Who’s Afraid of China?

Michael Barr

Location: Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 10 St James’s Square, London SW1

Time/Date: 22nd September 2011, 13:00-14:00

RSVP: contact@chathamhouse.org

If China suddenly democratised, would it cease being labelled as a threat? This provocative book argues that fears of China often say as much about those who hold them as they do about the rising power itself. It focuses not on the usual trope of economic and military might, but on China’s growing cultural influence and the connections between China’s domestic politics and its attempts to brand itself internationally. Using examples from film, education, media, politics, and art, Who’s Afraid of China? is both an introduction to Chinese soft power and a critical analysis of international reaction to it. It examines how the West’s own past, hopes, and fears shape the way it thinks about and engages with China and argues that the rising power touches a nerve in the Western psyche, presenting a fundamental challenge to ideas about modernity, history, and international relations.

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