For the most part, attention around China’s border relations focuses on its contested maritime boundaries. But China’s borderland relations are equally disputed. Across its land borders, China has a range of human, cultural and crucial economic links, and in many cases these borders are relatively recently decided, if defined at all.
In this new series, YCW delves into China’s borderland relations through a series of conversations with regional experts to understand the intricacies of each one — as well as any broader patterns. To inaugurate the series, YCW hosted MIT’s M. Taylor Fravel, a world-renowned expert on China’s border relations who set the scene for the broader series and explained the historical and contemporary issues animating China’s borderland relations.
Moderator:
Raffaello Pantucci (YCW Co-Founder)
About M. Taylor Fravel:
M. Taylor Fravel is an international relations scholar who focuses on international security, China, and East Asia. In addition to being the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fravel is a member of the board of directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and serves as Principal Investigator for the Maritime Awareness Project. He is widely published and has two books to his name: “Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China’s Territorial Disputes” (Princeton University Press, 2008) and “Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy Since 1949” (Princeton University Press, 2019).
Cover image courtesy of: Martin Jung via Wikimedia Commons
Video edited by: Joshua Cartwright
