Chinese perspectives of the early atomic age, before the emergence of the People's Republic of China in 1949, remain poorly understood, especially within the International Relations field. Historical accounts have largely drawn from American, British and Soviet sources. This research, based on a British Academy Research Grant (SG171630), starts in 1945, when atomic weapons were first used by the United States against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

The last decade has seen a surge of interest in economic inequality and widely read books about its social and political consequences by Thomas Piketty, Anthony Atkinson, and Larry Bartels. Yet most scholarship focuses on incomes, neglecting the massive inequalities that exist and are widening in the ownership of assets: from residential to financial wealth.

A panel discussion on the subject of a new special issue of the Journal of International Affairs, guest-edited by Margaret MacMillan, Anand Menon and Patrick Quinton-Brown.

A drinks reception will follow.

Chair: Jane Gingrich, Magdalen College

Cybersecurity is a complex and contested issue in international politics. The existence of radically different conceptions of cybersecurity is recognized by many scholars in International Relations, but rarely explored outside the cyber ‘great powers’: the US, the EU, Russia, and China. This talk investigates cybersecurity in Egypt and the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a region between two poles of internet governance that has close military and security ties to the US and Europe and authoritarian features more reminiscent of Russia or China.