【Talk&Lecture】What China needs to know about Brexit
Date: Apr.18th, 2019
Time: 18:30-20:30p.m.
Speaker: Professor Bill Durodie
Venue: Room 250, Mong Man Wai Buiding, Zijingang Campus
[Speaker Intro]
Professor Durodie is chair of Risk and Security in International Relations, as well as a former head of the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies, at the University of Bath in the UK. He was educated at Imperial College London, the London School of Economics and New College Oxford. He obtained his PhD through the Centre for Decision Analysis and Risk Management of Middlesex University. His main research interest is to examine the causes and consequences of contemporary perceptions of risk, as well as how these are framed and communicated across a range of issues relating to security, science and society.
【Abstract】
Brexit appears to confuse, divide and anger people alike. But is it the cause of this, or the consequence of other processes? Certainly, many associates it with the advent of Trump and the rise of so-called populist parties across Europe and beyond. What does this all mean for a China that is growing and looking for predictability in the world order? Britain is not some third-rate power but remains one of the world's largest economies. Now the EU Council have agreed to allow yet another extension to this exhausting and inflammatory process - to 31 October. But it need not end there. Meanwhile many enterprises complain about being in limbo. And next month, the people of Europe, including the UK now, will get a chance to get their voices heard in European Parliament elections. Already Marinne Le Pen in France, the leader of the nationalist Front Nationale, is campaigning on the basis of the EU not allowing the UK to leave. Of course, all of this had been made worse by a fundamental divide between the people, who voted to leave, and their leaders who do not want to. So what, if anything, ought China to know or learn from all this? Are their important lessons in maintaining popular support that even non-democratic countries ought to head?
