China's Assertive Insecurity in a Chaotic World, with Selina Ho

How China wields power, and how its neighbors respond

Selina Ho, Associate Professor in International Affairs and Co-Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, discusses the Southeast Asia trip of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, why she labels China's foreign policy as both assertive and insecure, and why China is using the Korean War of the 1950s to rally its population behind the country's leaders in the current trade war with the United States.

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Selina Ho is Associate Professor in International Affairs and Co-Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. She researches Chinese politics and foreign policy. Specifically, she is interested in how China wields power and influence via infrastructure and water disputes in Southeast Asia and South Asia. Her work stands at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations.

Selina is the author of Thirsty Cities: Social Contracts and Public Goods Provision in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2019), co-author of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (University of California Press, 2020), and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations (2020). She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, including International Affairs, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Journal of Contemporary China. Selina is also a Council Member of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. From September 2017 to September 2018, she was a Global Futures Council Fellow with the World Economic Forum. Selina received her Ph.D. from The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. She was formerly a civil servant with the Singapore government.

STATE OF ASIA podcast

Season 8, Episode 11 – published April 15, 2025

Host:Remko Tanis, Asia Society Switzerland

Editor: Remko Tanis, Managing Editor, Asia Society Switzerland

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