Master's course: China - Features of a New Geopolitical Power

Hosted by one of the centre's partner institutions, the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS), this new annual course is open for all students at the university interested in fresh and research-based perspectives on China in the world today. Several researchers from the Geopol Centre’s participating institutions are teaching in this course, which is coordinated by Anna Ahlers at IKOS. With their diverse backgrounds, this group of teachers brings a variety of classic and innovative approaches to geopolitics and plenty of empirical insights to class. 

Weekly topics this term ranged from China's evolving foreign relations, its build-up of military and territorial power, conflict hotspots in East Asia, China's global scientific and technological impact, infrastructural power along the Belt and Road and beyond, and China's global mobilities and migration, to an assessment of China's soft power. This semester, 20 students signed up for this class, of which the majority came from political science and China studies, as well as from science and technology studies and history. More information about the course can be found here: https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ikos/KIN4350/. The course will constantly be developed further in the coming years and will continuously incorporate insights from the Geopolitics centre's ongoing projects.