The Heat: Xi Jinping’s year of foreign policy

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The Heat: Xi Jinping's year of foreign policy

2015 has been a busy year for Chinese President Xi Jinping. Handshakes sealed multi-billion dollar deals, but what are the highlights that reflect a change in China’s foreign policy? And what are the reasons behind the shift?

Xi began the year by visiting China’s so-called “all-weather partner”: Pakistan. Xi also attended the Bandung Conference in Indonesia and then took part in the BRICS summit and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Ufa, Russia this summer.

Xi also went to the U.S. and the UK. His trip to Singapore this fall led to a historic meeting with Taiwan’s leader Ma Ying-Jeou.
There was the G20 summit in Turkey and the APEC summit in the Philippines. Xi made climate change commitments at the Paris talks and then headed to Johannesburg for the China-Africa Forum.

Some of the key policies and programs getting great attention this year were the Asia Infrastructure Development Bank and the One Belt One Road Initiative.

The Heat was joined by the following guests to go over this historic year for China:

  • From Beijing, The Heat was joined by Victor Gao. He is a Chinese international relations expert.
  • From Johannesburg, Bob Wekesa joined the show. Wekesa is a research associate at the China-Africa Reporting Project at the University of the Witwatersrand.
  • From London, Kerry Brown came on the program. Brown is a professor of Chinese Studies at King’s College.
  • From CCTV America’s Washington, D.C. studio, Andrew Small joined the discussion. Small is a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund’s Asia Program.

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