State of Asia

State of Asia is the podcast from Asia Society Switzerland . Engaging conversations with leading minds on current and future developments in Asia, that affect us all. This season, our guests include: Leni Robredo , until recently Vice President of the Philippines; C Raja Mohan , one of India's foremost foreign policy thinkers; and John Zhu , Chief Economist Asia at Swiss Re in Hong Kong. In o...

Legislative Council member Iswandy Ahmad and agricultural entrepreneur Dr. Vanessa Teo talk about their homeland Brunei – the independent Islamic sultanate on the island of Borneo. Brunei boasts a well-educated population, excellent infrastructure, and a stable government. It is a member of the Commonwealth and of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Since the discovery of petroleum...

Supreme Court lawyer Sara Hossain and academic Dr. Faraha Nawaz talk about their homeland Bangladesh – one of the world’s most crowded countries. Bangladesh has been going through remarkable developments since the 1990s. Millions have been pulled out of poverty, the garment industry has flourished, and before the pandemic, economic growth exceeded 7% for four years in a row, outpacing not just Pak...

Human rights lawyer Dilfuza Kurolova and political scientist Dr. Farkhod Tolipov talk about their homeland Uzbekistan – the land locked and most populous country of Central Asia. After two decades of economic and political isolation under the former President Islom Karimov, there are hopes that the current president will bring the much needed change to the former Soviet country. President Shavkat...

Human rights lawyer Bhavani Fonseka and human rights advocate Ambika Satkunanathan talk about their homeland Sri Lanka – the island nation just off the southeastern coast of India. Sri Lanka boasts a large, well-educated population, great economic potential, a history of democracy, and popular tourist attractions. At the same time, the country has been marred by political violence since its indepe...

Journalist and Musician Kunga Tenzin Dorji , known as Supe , talks about his homeland Bhutan – the landlocked country located in the Eastern Himalayas. Until the 1960s, the kingdom of Bhutan was isolated from the rest of the world. When Bhutan started to open up, it did not modernize blindly, as Supe points out. The tiny nation wedged between India and China was able to preserve its national ident...

Our second podcast season "Meet My Country" is out. In this season, you will learn about a new Asian country in each edition from the perspective of leading local voices.

In politics, if you are criticized from all sides, it’s usually a sign you’ve reached a good compromise. So it was with Switzerland’s recently unveiled China Strategy: It was seen as either being too harsh or way too lax on China. Swiss Ambassador Raphael Naegeli shares with us why Switzerland’s new China Strategy is a good step forward and not all that different from other countries’ approaches....

As China increases its power and moves westwards, Russia is looking more to the East. The Soviet Union and newly communist China were, at a time, very close. In recent years and especially since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the countries have intensified their relationship. The Sino-Russia relationship is more than a partnership, but less than an alliance as both countries share an ideology base...

While China’s largest neighbor India is expected to overtake China by population within only a few years, it is struggling in most other areas to compete with the other giant emerging country. The recent border clashes only led the already complicated relations to deteriorate. As for most countries, India will have to balance furthering its economic potential – that it will not achieve without Chi...

China has responded to the call for investments in Africa like no other country. Since the end of the 1990s, China’s increasing financial and economic engagement in Africa has led to critical debates whether China can offer a good alternative to Western aid and charity. Its relationships with African countries has also become ever more political. Your host:  Nico Luchsinger, Co-Executive Director,...

China is the largest source of development assistance and investment in Cambodia and Laos. Both governments maintain close relations with China, where its presence is more marked than anywhere else in Southeast Asia. The region is one of the primary targets for the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with one main line running from Kunming, China to Vientiane, Laos to connect Chinese markets t...

China’s relations with the historically more remote, maritime and Muslim-majority countries Indonesia and Malaysia are complex and historically intertwined. For both Indonesia and Malaysia, China is a vital economic partner, but tensions in the South China Sea and anti-China sentiments remain prevalent. The Indo-Pacific being home to significant global trading routes is not only of strategic impor...

Listen to Asia Society Switzerland's Nico Luchsinger on our first podcast season "China and the World".