December 2023 – Part of a new volume titled Undercurrents edited by Ties Dams with Ingrid d’Hooghe and Lily Spangers, I reflect upon Wolf Warrior II and one of my favourite movies from the past decade, An Elephant Sitting Still by the late Hu Bo. The volume is framed as follows: The tide of great power strife is rising once again. When tensions between rivals increase, the need to understand each other becomes greater. Where newspapers write about geopolitical considerations, Undercurrents dives deeper below the surface. It argues that we need to persist in our attempt to comprehend what is obscured and asks: what undercurrents are driving China’s evolution as a global power?
You can download the volume for free here.