Struggling to keep up on China’s New Silk Road

By David O’Brien, Assistant Professor, School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, The University of Nottingham Ningbo. The announcement of US$1.65bn dollar injection of capital into a hydropower project in Pakistan during Xi Jinping’s recent visit there marks the first step on China’s much hyped New Silk Road. In November President Xi announced that China intends to …

Chengdu’s creative spaces – cultural diamonds or lead balloons?

By Philip Crosbie, PhD candidate, School of Asian Studies, University College Cork. As one of Chinas emerging cities in the south-west, Chengdu is quickly becoming one of the most prosperous and talked about cities in the country’s landscape of urban development. Most projections forecast that Chengdu is becoming a key area of domestic and foreign …

China: A Country in Transition

By Catriona Deery, Studying Geography at the University of Nottingham UK. A country in transition is defined as a nation state that has undergone significant and profound political-economic change over a relatively short period of time. Countries in transition are often scripted as being ‘emerging markets’. They have social impacts including alternative modes of social …