Sinica Podcast

This week on Sinica, after an eventful week of climate-change-focused meetings, including U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry’s trip to China, the U.S.-hosted Leaders Summit on Climate convened on April 22 and 23. Kaiser chats with China climate policy specialist Angel Hsu, an assistant professor in the Public Policy Department and the Energy, Environment, and Ecology Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Alex Wang, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, and a leading expert on environmental law and the law and politics of China. They provide insights into how China and the U.S. can continue to make progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions even while competing on other fronts. 4:24: John Kerry’s mission to China17:08: Fighting for leadership on meeting climate goals 27:25: Will climate collaboration with China fall by the wayside?43:01: The Green New Deal and China’s environmental policiesRecommendations: Angel: Blockchain Chicken Farm by Xiaowei Wang.Alex: The Environment China podcast, Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing by Robert Caro, and the highly informative Twitter feed of carbon analyst Yan Qin.Kaiser: The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, The Steven Spielberg movie called Ready Player One. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Arthur Jones and Steven Schwankert about their documentary The Six. The film, directed by Jones and produced by James Cameron, focuses on Schwankert’s search for the six Chinese men who survived the sinking of the Titanic on the night of April 14, 1912. Tracing the fate of the men takes Schwankert from New York’s Chinatown to the dells of Wisconsin, from Canada to Australia, and from England to Guangdong Province. What his team discovers is the moving story of racial prejudice, the Chinese immigrant experience, and profound personal bravery. Originally scheduled to be released last year shortly after we taped, The Six is now finally out in Chinese theaters, with U.S. release dates to be announced. It marks the second collaboration between Jones and Schwankert — we discussed their earlier film, The Poseidon Project, with Schwankert on this program in 2014.5:12: The journey from conception to completion of the film14:21: The cultural significance of the Titanic in China26:46: What were the survivors doing on the Titanic?46:01: A story of immigration and the Chinese experienceRecommendations:Jeremy: The South African news website Daily Maverick.Arthur: Two documentaries: Still Tomorrow, by Fan Jian, and Sleep Furiously, by Gideon Koppel.Steven: Menno Moto: A Journey Across the Americas in Search of My Mennonite Identity, by Cameron Dueck, and Confucius and Opium: China Book Reviews, by Isham Cook.Kaiser: The comedy television series The Good Place.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On April 16, PBS’s Great Performances will broadcast the world premiere of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which tells the story of classical music in China over the last half century through the lens of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s storied relationship with the country, from its first performances in the P.R.C. in 1973 until its most recent tour, in 2018. Along the way, the film profiles established Chinese musicians and composers, like Tán Dùn 谭盾 and Láng Lǎng 郎朗, and introduces us to new Chinese talent, like the composer Peng-Peng Gong 龚天鹏. This week, Kaiser chats with three individuals involved with the film: co-director Jennifer Lin, a veteran Philadelphia Inquirer reporter and the author of the 2017 book Shanghai Faithful; producer Cài Jīndōng 蔡金冬, a professor of music and arts at Bard College, the director of the US-China Music Institute, and a former conductor of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra; and Sheila Melvin, a script consultant for Beethoven in Beijing and the co-author, along with her husband, Cai, of Rhapsody in Red and Beethoven in China, both books about classical music in the People’s Republic of China. Recommendations:Sheila: This viola concerto, performed by the Shanghai Philharmonic. Jindong: The works of Zhōu Lóng 周龙.Kaiser: A day in the life of Abed Salama, by Nathan Thrall, and Surviving the crackdown in Xinjiang, by Raffi Khatchadourian.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Stephanie Studer, China correspondent for The Economist, who recently published a special report in the magazine about China’s “Post-90s” generation; and with Alec Ash, author of the book Wish Lanterns, which looks at a cohort of Chinese youth born between 1985 and 1990. The two explore the apparent contradictions between, on the one hand, the cosmopolitanism and socially progressive attitudes of young Chinese today and, on the other, their increasingly assertive national identity. 9:15: Social liberalism and nationalism10:55: Less impressed by the west27:38: China’s millennials and their western counterparts38:06: A progressive generation and regressive regime 43:12: How state actors affect post-90’s discourseRead more about China’s new youth here on SupChina, by Alec Ash. Recommendations:Stephanie: Frank Dorn’s jigsaw map of 1936 Beijing, available on the Beijing Postcards website.Alec: He recommends traveling to Dali, Yunnan, as well as trying the provincial cuisine. Kaiser: The column Beijing Lights, published on the Spittoon Collective website.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Deborah Seligsohn, who served as the State Department’s Environment, Science, Technology and Health Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 2003 to 2007. She is now an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University in Philadelphia, where she currently teaches a course on pandemics and politics. She recalls her firsthand experience with China’s SARS response in 2003, shares her views on how much China improved in the intervening years, and talks about how, when, and why China mishandled its initial response to the novel coronavirus in the winter of 2019–2020. Deborah also offers her critical perspective on the persistent “lab-leak” theory.This show was recorded on March 12, with an addendum recorded on March 29, in which Deborah addresses some of the news relating to the search for COVID’s origins that came out in the intervening weeks.6:50: Understanding the origins of COVID-1934:16: Chinese scientists’ unwillingness to share data 43:54: The World Health Organization’s handling of the virus54:36: The lab-leak theoryRecommendations:Deborah: Coronation, by Ai Weiwei, and the podcast In The Bubble: From The Frontlines.Kaiser: The rise of made-in-China diplomacy, Peter Hessler’s latest piece in The New Yorker.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser welcomes back Ryan Hass, the Michael H. Armacost Chair at the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institute, a senior adviser at the Scowcroft Group and McLarty Associates, and the China Director at the National Security Council during the second Obama administration. Ryan’s new book, Stronger: Adapting America's China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence, lays out a great approach to right-sizing the challenges that China poses in the decades ahead and identifies a set of sensible U.S. responses: running faster instead of trying to trip the other guy, regaining confidence and avoiding declinism and defeatism, and not turning China into an enemy. 4:42: Differences in Biden and Trump administrations25:37: How interdependence with China raises American interests29:31: A firm and steady approach to America’s foremost competitor43:54: Risk reduction and crisis management vis-à-vis ChinaRecommendations:Ryan: Any publication by William J. Burns, the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Kaiser: Works by Susan B. Glasser, particularly those narrated by Julia Whelan.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with ex-venture capitalist Lillian Li, who moved to China from the U.K. last year and has been looking at China’s tech ecosystem from a unique perspective — combining an investor’s eye, an academic background studying development, a grounding in Chinese language and culture, and a comparative instinct. Lillian shares her views on how technology platforms have become institutions, how the U.S. and China have responded to this development in starkly different ways, and the major features that distinguish the technology ecosystems of the West and China. 10:19: Waiting on the next era of technology25:06: The challenges faced by institutions34:48: The future of the tech-government relationship39:44: Two parallel worlds, China and the U.S. 47:10: Scale is no longer guaranteedRecommendations: Lillian: But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past, by Chuck Klosterman. Kaiser: Middlemarch by George Eliot, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In August 2020, the CGTN anchorwoman Chéng Lěi 成蕾, an Australian citizen, was detained in Beijing. Six months later, she was formally arrested and charged with violations of China’s expansive state secrets law. This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with ABC reporter Bill Birtles (whose involuntary departure from China was linked to Cheng Lei’s case), longtime Beijing-based Financial Times correspondent Lucy Hornby, and Chinese law specialist Donald Clarke, a professor of law at George Washington University, about the case and its relation to the deterioration of ties between Beijing and Canberra.12:19: What we know about Cheng Lei’s time in detention21:18: Reciprocal hostage taking, or something else?25:00: Dawn raids on Chinese journalists in Australia34:42: The public response to Cheng Lei’s arrestRecommendations:Lucy: Revolutions, a history podcast exploring political revolutions, hosted by Mike Duncan. Don: The Construction of Guilt in China: An Empirical Account of Routine Chinese Injustice, by Yu Mou, The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, by Zachary D. Carter, and the search software X1.Bill: The politics of being Chinese in Australia, a comprehensive survey of attitudes and experiences of the Chinese-Australian community, by Jennifer Hsu. Kaiser: The British History Podcast, hosted by Jamie Jeffers.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to talk about the faulty assumptions that American analysts and policymakers continue to make about politics in China — and the flawed policy built on those problematic assumptions. Despite much recent academic research into the behavior of authoritarian states that offer better models for understanding China’s politics, several older and less accurate heuristics persist. Jude deftly skewers these and offers useful approaches to thinking about Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 and the CCP leadership. 4:57: “Collapsism” and China’s political system10:45: The shortcomings of engagement with China24:21: “Xi besieged” 34:26: The “hidden reformer” fallacyRecommendations:Jeremy: The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease, by Charles Kenny, and The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign Against a Muslim Minority, by Sean R. Roberts.Jude: Cabin Porn: Inspiration for Your Quiet Place Somewhere, by Steven Leckart and Zach Klein. Kaiser: Two essays by Thomas Meaney: The canonization of Richard Holbrooke and The limits of Barack Obama’s idealism.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Julie Klinger, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware’s Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences, about rare earths — a family of 17 elements that are essential to the function of modern industry and are indispensable in everyday technology. Julie debunks many of the myths surrounding China and rare earths, and lays out her ideas about why, despite the relative ubiquity of mineable rare earth deposits, China has dominated production of these vitally important minerals for decades. 3:00: Debunking conventional wisdom on China and rare earths9:55: What are rare earths and how important are they21:30: How China’s near-monopoly on rare earths came to be32:49: Mining and environmental degradation45:32: China’s decision to slow down rare earth production and its consequencesRecommendations:Julie: Going outside for the sake of going outside, and The Probiotic Planet: Using Life to Manage Life, by Jamie Lorimer.Kaiser: “The chip choke point,” by Tim De Chant, in The Wire China (listen to the article on China Stories). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Wall Street Journal correspondent Te-Ping Chen to talk about her just-released collection of short fiction, Land of Big Numbers: Stories. Featuring 10 short stories all set in China or featuring Chinese characters, it showcases both the author’s keen eye for detailed observation and her imaginative powers and offers an unfailingly empathetic look at China from a wide range of disparate angles. Te-Ping even reads a passage from one short story, “Lulu,” which was previously published in The New Yorker.10:51: A real-life inspiration for her fiction28:30: A reading from “Lulu”37:10: The cultural disconnect between China and the U.S.43:16: Te-Ping’s writing and publishing processRecommendations:Te-Ping: A short story collection titled What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky, by Lesley Nneka Arimah, and My Country and My People, from a collection of essays from the 1930s by Lín Yǔtáng 林语堂.Kaiser: The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, by Christopher Beha. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with three of the guests in a remarkable room on the drop-in voice chat app Clubhouse, which ran for 14 hours on Saturday, February 6. The room, called “Is there a concentration camp in Xinjiang?,” brought thousands of listeners from China and around the world to talk about the ongoing extralegal internment of Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang. We spoke with the Han Chinese filmmaker who started the room (and wishes to remain anonymous); one of the main moderators, the journalist Muyi Xiao of the New York Times; and Rayhan Asat, a Uyghur attorney in the U.S. whose brother, a successful tech entrepreneur, has been put in the camps and has been incommunicado for three years.Recommendations:Jeremy: The Ministry for the Future: A Novel, by Kim Stanley Robinson. Rayhan: The Queen’s Gambit, available on Netflix.Muyi: A type of Wuhan hot dry noodle: 想念武汉热干面 (xiǎngniàn wǔhàn règānmiàn), available for purchase on Yamibuy. L: The 2012 film No, directed by Pablo Larraín.Kaiser: The book Land of Big Numbers: Stories, by Te-Ping Chen. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser talks with Dan Wang, a Shanghai-based analyst at research firm Gavekal Dragonomics, who also contributes a regular opinion column to Bloomberg. Combining firsthand knowledge of China’s tech sector with broad erudition and a humanist’s perspective, Dan offers a unique take on China’s innovation ecosystem, the country’s efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in technology, and the role of economic growth, fundamental optimism, and inspiration in China’s rise as a tech power.13:53: The outsize importance of economic growth25:02: An overemphasis on digital technology33:55: Reciprocity and technological codependence 49:12: Technology is more than just tools and patentsRecommendations:Dan: The works of Marcel Proust, and the ham and mushrooms of Yunnan Province. Kaiser: The Netflix series Flavorful Origins and Great State: China and the World, by Timothy Brook.Read Dan's 2020 annual letter: http://danwang.co/2020-letter/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Paul Heer about the conundrum of Taiwan — one of the thorniest and most fraught issues confronting the new Biden foreign policy team as it navigates the U.S.-China relationship. Paul is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and studies Chinese and East Asian issues. He served as the national intelligence officer for East Asia from 2007 to 2015, and was previously a senior analyst at the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence in its China Issue Group. In December 2020, Paul published two articles about Taiwan policy in The National Interest: “The Strategic Dilemma of Taiwan’s Democracy” and “The Inconvenient Truth About Taiwan’s Place in the World.” This episode’s conversation centers on the diagnosis and recommendations made in those two pieces.6:48: The democratic David versus the authoritarian Goliath17:47: Taiwan reunification in the Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 era36:55: The U.S. position on Taiwan40:22: The future of one country, two systemsRecommendations:Paul: The works of Charles Dickens. Kaiser: Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes.Subscribe to China Stories here, the newest podcast in the Sinica Podcast Network. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with the three authors of a new policy paper from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a relatively new D.C.-based think tank that advocates restraint in U.S. foreign policy. Michael D. Swaine, Jessica J. Lee, and Rachel Esplin Odell authored the report Toward an Inclusive & Balanced Regional Order: A New U.S. Strategy in East Asia, which was published by the Quincy Institute on January 11. In this longer-than-usual episode, they detail their recommendations for how they believe the Biden-Harris administration should approach the region, especially China.12:17: Sinophobia and Cold War mentalities23:33: The most pressing issues in East Asia42:59: Limited disentanglement in U.S.-China technology52:07: The role of U.S. forces in Japan and South Korea1:05:30: Taiwan’s “porcupine strategy” Recommendations:Rachel: Women in Color, an album by Raye Zaragoza, and The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Jessica: Lengthy puzzles as a way to provide some respite from laptops and cell phones.Michael: Continuing the trend of non-screen-related activities, Michael recommends taking up oil painting. Kaiser: Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State, by Barton Gellman.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

By the end of 2019, Chinese courts had uploaded some 80 million court cases to a massive, centralized database — a gold mine not only for people working in the legal professions in China, but also for researchers interested in what the court decisions can tell us about Chinese jurisprudence, criminal and civil procedures, and Chinese society more broadly. This week on Sinica, we present a show recorded back in December 2019 — prelapsarian days, before shelter-in-place orders, travel restrictions, and remote podcasting. Kaiser speaks with Rachel Stern, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law and in the UC Berkeley political science department, and with Ben Liebman, a professor of law and the director of the Center for Chinese Legal Studies at Columbia University. Both scholars have worked extensively with the database, and share their insights into why the Chinese government has pushed courts to upload cases to the database, and how it might transform the way that courts work in China.7:19: What’s in the database, and how it’s unique to China28:00: Pushing back against the techno-dystopian narrative34:12: Creating a marketplace for legal implications41:21: The limitations of artificial intelligence  Recommendations:Rachel: A collection of translated essays written by Chinese intellectuals, titled Voices from the Chinese Century: Public Intellectual Debate from Contemporary China; Under Red Skies: Three Generations of Life, Loss, and Hope in China, by Karoline Kan; and the NüVoices podcast.Ben: The works of artist Stuart Robertson. Kaiser: The popular Chinese talk show Informal Talks (非正式会谈 fēi zhèng shì huì tán), available to watch on YouTube. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser welcomes back former National Security Council China director Ryan Hass, who offers his perspective on the likely direction that the incoming Biden administration will take when it comes to managing the American relationship with China — the most difficult and most consequential of bilateral relationships. Thoughtful and measured as always, Ryan makes a good case for why the Biden team is not, in fact, boxed in by Trump’s antagonism toward China, and will chart a path that will diverge substantially from the one taken during four years of Trump without retreading the path taken during the Obama presidency.1:56: The structural issues at the heart of U.S.-China tensions6:59: Can the American political center hold? 12:10: What can be deduced from Biden’s personnel choices28:34: How the Biden election has changed Beijing’s political calculus38:36: Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and a Biden administrationRecommendations:Ryan: Anything written by John le Carré. Kaiser: Ed Yong, a writer for The Atlantic, especially his recent piece How science beat the virus.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why have so many prominent critical and dissident intellectuals from China come out vocally in support of Donald Trump? This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy set out to answer that question, and are joined by journalist Ian Johnson of the New York Times and by Lin Yao, a political scientist now earning a law degree at Yale, who writes frequently on Chinese intellectuals and U.S. politics.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with James “Jay” Carter, a professor of history at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, about his terrific new book, Champions Day: The End of Old Shanghai, which focuses on horse racing as an unlikely but effective way to tell the story of Shanghai during the Nanjing decade (1928–1938) and World War II. We also talk about the challenges of presenting Chinese history to non-specialists, and about Jay’s weekly column in SupChina, “This Week in China’s History.” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Evan Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees research in Washington, Beijing, and New Delhi on a dynamic region that encompasses both East Asia and South Asia. Evan also served as deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs under Condoleeza Rice during the second George W. Bush administration, and as vice chairman of the Paulson Institute, before joining Carnegie. Evan offers his unique perspective on how American policy over the last two decades has failed to keep up with changes happening in Asia, and how the increasing economic integration of the region has meant that the U.S. faces the threat of marginalization and relegation to a unidimensional role as a security provider. He offers useful ideas that the incoming Biden administration would do well to consider.Recommendations:Evan: The documentary Statecraft: The BUSH 41 Team, available on Amazon Prime, and the cooking podcast Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio. Kaiser: The Ministry for the Future: A Novel, by Kim Stanley Robinson.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, we bring you a conversation with Pallavi Aiyar, a prolific writer and, until 2008, a Beijing-based journalist, and Ananth Krishnan, who reported from China for The Hindu and India Today until 2018. The two chatted with Kaiser and Jeremy as part of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival in November, covering subjects from popular Chinese misconceptions and stereotypes about India to India’s curiosity about — and sparse media coverage of — its powerful neighbor to the northeast. 5:49: Mutual cultural ignorance between China and India 11:06: Indian views on Chinese authoritarianism 32:03: Social mobility and classism42:00: Comparing Chinese and Indian nationalism 52:23: 2020 as an inflection point in India-China relationsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Sinica, which was taped live at the fourth annual NEXTChina Conference on November 11, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro, co-authors of a new book called China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet. Li, an assistant professor of environmental studies at NYU Shanghai, and Shapiro, the chair of the environmental politics program at American University, tackle the question of whether a state-led authoritarian approach is needed to address the crisis of global warming and other looming ecological catastrophes. And while their focus is on the environment, the book interrogates more broadly the whole technocratic authoritarian approach to governance, with relevance to pandemic response, population policy, and much more.3:43: State-led environmentalism in China 16:18: Mechanisms of state power and enforcement on the environment23:12: Environmentalism and China’s illiberal turn31:06: China’s space ambitions and technocratic leadership See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, we teamed up with Columbia University Press and the Columbia Global Centers to convene a conversation with Brian Dott, a professor of history and Middle Eastern studies at Whitman College and the author of The Chili Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography. Kaiser — who is something of a chili head himself — chats with Brian about how, when, and why the chili pepper came to China and became such a fixture of the cuisines of Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou, and Yunnan. 7:19: Where chilies made landfall in mainland China16:22: Chinese cuisine and cultural identity25:48: Theories on how chilies proliferated throughout China35:54: Chilies and medicinal applicationsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, we present the first installment in a three-part series produced in collaboration with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), highlighting the groundbreaking work of young social scientists who are focused on China. In this episode, Kaiser chats with Jennifer Pan, an assistant professor of communication at Stanford, about three of her research papers that illuminate different aspects of social control in the P.R.C.: the use of the dibao social welfare system, hiring decisions, and the use of clickbait headlines by government officials on social media.Recommendations:Jennifer: A series of escapist fiction by Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries.Kaiser: Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History, by Kurt Andersen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Rana Mitter, professor of the history and politics of modern China at St. Cross College, Oxford, and director of the University of Oxford China Centre, about his new book, China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism. The book is a meditation on how the evolving official narrative of World War II in contemporary Chinese political discourse shapes not only China’s domestic politics but its foreign policy as well.8:51: What Chinese nationalism looked like before World War II30:48: Shaping the narrative of China’s wartime experience47:13: Giving China the postwar period it never had57:55: Chinese public discussion about the war Recommendations:Rana: The Sword and the Spear, by Mia Couto. Kaiser: How the coronavirus hacks the immune system, by James Somers, and the anti-superhero series The Boys, available on Amazon Prime.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Tobita Chow and Jake Werner about what a progressive U.S. policy toward China should look like. Tobita is the direc­tor of Jus­tice Is Glob­al, a spe­cial project of People’s Action that is build­ing a move­ment to cre­ate a more just and sus­tain­able glob­al econ­o­my and defeat right-wing nation­al­ism around the world. Jake is a Postdoctoral Global China Research Fellow at Boston University's Global Development Policy Center. He is currently researching the emergence of great power conflict between the U.S. and China following the 2008 financial crisis and how new strategies for global development could resolve those tensions. The three talk about whether the “tankies” bring anything to the conversation, whether a Biden presidency is likely to move U.S. policy off the current trajectory toward conflict with China, and how human rights should be considered in drafting progressive China policy.3:58: Much ado about tankies13:10: A worldwide shift toward authoritarianism28:44: Imperialism — it’s complicated33:31: Thoughts on a potential Joe Biden presidency36:32: Progressive globalizationCalling all podcast lovers: Join Podyssey and discover a social network of podcast listeners. You can explore Kaiser's playlist on the website here.Recommendations:Tobita: The album Fantasize Your Ghost, by Ohmme, and Punisher, by Phoebe Bridgers.Jake: The Made in China Journal. Also, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory, by Herbert Marcuse.   Kaiser: The show Raised by Wolves, available on HBO Max.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with the Los Angeles–based film producer Peter Shiao about his vision of bringing wuxia 武侠 — a genre that tells stories of chivalrous martial artists with supernatural abilities — to global audiences through comics, graphic novels, and films. The son of renowned martial arts novelist Shiao Yi (蕭逸 Xiāo Yì), who passed away in 2018, Peter wants to create a wuxia storyverse that will be to Chinese martial arts literature what the Marvel Comics Universe has been to the superhero genre. Read more about Peter’s Immortal Studios at https://www.immortal-studios.com/.8:34: Bringing wuxia to mainstream audiences12:27: Wuxia as a contribution to global pop culture18:11: Chronicles of the Immortal Swordsmen 28:30: Regional differences in wuxia writing and appealRecommendations:Peter: Visit Immortal Studios’ website here, and consider supporting the studio.Kaiser: The 1997 TV miniseries Ivanhoe, featuring the late, great Christopher Lee, who plays the head of the Knights Templar.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Sebastian Strangio, the Southeast Asia editor at The Diplomat, about his new book, In the Dragon's Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century. The book examines how each of the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (except Brunei) has coped with China's rapid reemergence as a regional superpower, and offers superbly written on-the-ground reportage by a longtime resident of the region.Recommendations:Jeremy: The novel True Grit, by Charles Portis. Sebastian: The novel World of Yesterday, by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. Kaiser: The Swedish progressive metal supergroup Soen. Start with the album Lykaia.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Since February, a series of tit-for-tat restrictions on and expulsions of journalists in the U.S. and China have resulted in the decimation of the ranks of reporters in the P.R.C. While the bureaus of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post remain open, they've had to make do with reduced staff and journalists reporting from outside of the Chinese mainland — in Taiwan and South Korea. Emily Feng, a reporter with National Public Radio (NPR), is one journalist who is still in Beijing. She tells us about how restrictions and expulsions have impacted morale and the ability to report on China.16:58: Morale among foreign media reporters in China26:29: Rising tensions and the U.S. strategy of reciprocity33:33: Reporting from China under increasing pressure36:08: Journalist expulsions and changing perceptions on China reportingRecommendations:Jeremy: A column by Alex Colville: Chinese Lives, featured on SupChina. Specifically, Jeremy recommends Mao’s ‘shameless poet’: Guo Moruo and his checkered legacy.Emily: The Children of Time series, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Kaiser: The China conundrum: Deterrence as dominance, by Andrew Bacevich.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, we discuss the controversy surrounding the decision by Beijing to selectively replace Mongolian-language instruction in schools in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region with Mandarin — and how people both in Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia are pushing back. We're joined by Christopher Atwood, one of the nation's leading specialists in Mongolian history and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and by Christian Sorace, an assistant professor of political science at Colorado College.7:28: A historical overview of Mongolian history through independence19:03: The demography of Inner Mongolia23:09: What the bilingual education policy would actually do35:07: The impetus for pushing language policyRecommendations:Jeremy: Buying books from your local bookstore. He also recommends the website bookshop.org, which allows you to support local bookstores.Christopher: Ravelstein, by Saul Bellow, and the album At Fillmore East, by the Allman Brothers Band. Christian: As a new father, he’s recommending a children’s book: Telephone Tales, by Gianni Rodari. Kaiser: The Vow, a true crime documentary series available on HBO Max. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This podcast was recorded as part of the 2020 SupChina Women’s Conference on September 9, 2020. Susan Shirk, chair and research professor of the 21st Century China Center at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at University of California, San Diego, is on Sinica this week. Jeremy, Kaiser, and Susan take a broad look at the bilateral relationship as the U.S. inches toward a presidential election in November.Recommendations:Jeremy: I’m doomsday prepping for the end of democracy by Farhad Manjoo, and We don’t know how to warn you any harder. America is dying., by Umair Haque.Susan: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson and The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom. Kaiser: Is Russian meddling as dangerous as we think?, by Joshua Yaffa and How my mother and I became Chinese propaganda by Jiayang Fan.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jiayang Fan, friend of Sinica and staff writer for The New Yorker, joins Kaiser and Jeremy for a discussion on her recently published long-form piece, How my mother and I became Chinese propaganda. The three talk about the experiences that informed her writing, her mother, and how this piece has been received in the United States and abroad.7:27: Drawing the ire from both sides of the discussion on China28:48: The remembered sense of humiliation in Chinese history33:49: Losing face, family, and Chinese culture46:40: Sexism within online commentaryRecommendations:Jeremy: A column by James Carter: This Week in China’s History, featured on SupChina.Jiayang: Negroland: A Memoir, by Margo Jefferson. Kaiser: Dune, by Frank Herbert.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Since 2010, the China in Africa Podcast has brought balanced, wide-ranging conversations about one of the most consequential developments in the global economy and geopolitics to a worldwide audience. Today, in honor of the 500th episode, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with the show’s co-founders, Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden, about its history and the major trends in Sino-African relations that they've seen in a decade of focusing on China's expanding presence in Africa.Subscribe to the China in Africa Podcast on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher 10:43: Does Africa need aid or trade? 18:21: Beware binary tropes on China-Africa relations39:47: China’s high-risk vaccine diplomacy in Africa45:03: How Chinese international development efforts are shifting away from sub-Saharan AfricaRecommendations:Jeremy: I Didn’t Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation, by Michela Wrong. Cobus: A partner of the China-Africa Project: the Africa-China Reporting Project at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, a source for investigative reporting on China-Africa issues. Eric: The Twitter feed of Gyude A. Moore, former Minister of Public Works in Liberia, and an article written by Moore in the Mail & Guardian titled A new cold war is coming. Africa should not pick sides. Kaiser: Avast, ye swabs. Kaiser is studying up on pirate lore. He recommends The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down, by Colin Woodard.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we're delighted to bring you the first episode of Mary Kay Magistad's brand new podcast, On China's New Silk Road. Mary Kay is a veteran China reporter and a dear friend of the Sinica Podcast – a frequent guest in our early days. After she moved back to the States, she created another great podcast called Who's Century It It?, a show that often looked at issues related to China. We know that Sinica's audience would really appreciate her latest series and wanted to share it with you. On China's New Silk Road is a production of the Global Reporting Centre, a nonprofit group that teaches, practices and promotes innovation in global journalism. Make sure to subscribe to this great new series! We hope you enjoy this first episode.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Keisha Brown, Mark Akpaninyie, and Leland Lazarus about initiatives they're involved with to increase black representation in China-related fields. Keisha Brown is a historian of modern China who is an assistant professor in the Department of History, Political Science, Geography, and Africana Studies at Tennessee State University. Mark Akpaninyie is a researcher focusing on China's Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese investment abroad, and China-Africa relations. Leland Lazarus is a foreign service officer stationed in Barbados, who recently joined Sinica for a discussion on China's influence in the Caribbean.8:24: Disciplines within China studies that need black voices10:45: Underrepresentation within China studies20:31: Black role models in East Asian academia  44:59: Right-wing populist parallels in America and China 51:35: Engaging communities of color in China studiesRecommendations:Keisha: Asian Studies and Black Lives Matter, a digital dialogue conducted by the Association for Asian Studies, and the podcast Code Switch, by NPR.Mark: A Chinese-language Black Lives Matter syllabus created by Amani Core. Leland: The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, by John M. Barry.  Kaiser: How the pandemic defeated America, a story in the September issue of The Atlantic, by Ed Yong.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, in a show that was streamed live on August 27, Kaiser and Jeremy examine China’s efforts to fulfill the goal of Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 of eradicating extreme poverty in China by the end of this year. They are joined by two guests: Gāo Qín 高琴 is a professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work and the founding director of the Columbia China Center for Social Policy. She is a leading authority on China’s social welfare system and published a book titled Welfare, Work, and Poverty: Social Assistance in China. Matthew Chitwood, who spent two years researching rural poverty in the remote mountain village of Bangdong in Yunnan Province, brings an on-the-ground perspective on poverty alleviation. He is currently writing a book based on his field research. 4:39: Xi Jinping’s personal project of poverty eradication 12:23: Poverty in China is confined to rural areas25:44: How rural poverty alleviation actually works in China34:16: Chinese social assistance programs and means testing 48:49: Overlooked topics in the discussion on poverty eradicationRecommendations:Jeremy: Clean: The New Science of Skin, by James Hamblin.Matthew: Chinese Village, Socialist State, by Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz, Mark Selden, and Kay Ann Johnson.Gao: Blaming Immigrants: Nationalism and the Economics of Global Movement, by Neeraj Kaushal, and The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor, by Arthur Kleinman. Kaiser: Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich, by Thomas Levenson.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In a show taped in May, Kaiser chats with New York–based rapper Bohan Phoenix, who has gained audiences in both the U.S. and China, and Allyson Toy, his manager, a Chinese American who has worked on cross-cultural music promotion and lived in Shanghai for a few years before returning to the U.S. in 2018. In a wide-ranging discussion, they look at hip-hop’s development in China, its relationship with African-American culture, and the travails of bridging two worlds as a Chinese-American hip-hop artist. 5:36: An introverted immigrant becoming an American hip-hop artist21:30: Inclusion and the changing hip-hop landscape in America23:52: The early days of China’s hip-hop scene32:54: Rap and racism in China54:05: There’s no such thing as “Chinese hip-hop” Recommendations:Allyson: Asian Not Asian Podcast, hosted by the two New York City–based comedians Fumi Abe and Mic Nguyen.Bohan: Jay Chou’s third studio album, The Eight Dimensions (八度空间 bā dù kōngjiàn), by Jay Chou.Kaiser: An article in The Atlantic, titled the Prophecies of Q, by Adrienne LaFrance.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode of the Sinica Podcast, recorded in June 2017, is running as a bonus this week. The arrest of Stephen Bannon yesterday on August 20, 2020, has brought renewed media attention to Guō Wénguì 郭文贵, a business associate of Bannon’s who is wanted by the Chinese government. The Wall Street Journal has recently reported that the federal authorities are examining the pair’s business dealings. Alexandra Stevenson and Mike Forsythe, journalists for the New York Times, joined Kaiser and Jeremy in 2017 to share their thoughts on Guo’s uncertain personal history and his quest to shine a light on the murky world of Chinese elite politics. The original description of the podcast, including many useful references of the people in Guo’s complicated backstory, is reproduced below:The life and times of Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui 郭文贵 reads much like an epic play, so it is fitting that we have included with this podcast a dramatis personæ to explain the many characters in Guo’s story. Scroll to the bottom, below the recommendations, to follow along with them in order of appearance.New York Times journalists Mike Forsythe and Alexandra Stevenson have spent over a dozen hours with the turbulent tycoon at the New York City penthouse overlooking Central Park where he resides in exile, listening to his stories and carefully investigating his most scandalous claims. Mike has for years been a leading reporter on the intersection of money and power in elite Chinese politics, first at Bloomberg and then at the Times. Alex, as a reporter at the Financial Times and now the New York Times, has focused on covering hedge funds, emerging markets, and the world of finance.Are Guo’s myriad corruption allegations, which go as high as China’s anti-corruption chief, Wang Qishan 王岐山, credible? Is even Guo’s own life history verifiable? Who is he really, and why is he on this quest to unveil the shadowy world of Chinese elite politics? Mike and Alex don’t have all the answers, but they are two of the best people in the world to shed light on what is profound and what is puffery in Guo’s version of events.The life and times of Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui 郭文贵 reads much like an epic play, so it is fitting that we have included with this podcast a dramatis personæ to explain the many characters in Guo’s story. Scroll to the bottom, below the recommendations, to follow along with them in order of appearance.New York Times journalists Mike Forsythe and Alexandra Stevenson have spent over a dozen hours with the turbulent tycoon at the New York City penthouse overlooking Central Park where he resides in exile, listening to his stories and carefully investigating his most scandalous claims. Mike has for years been a leading reporter on the intersection of money and power in elite Chinese politics, first at Bloomberg and then at the Times. Alex, as a reporter at the Financial Times and now the New York Times, has focused on covering hedge funds, emerging markets, and the world of finance.Are Guo’s myriad corruption allegations, which go as high as China’s anti-corruption chief, Wang Qishan 王岐山, credible? Is even Guo’s own life history verifiable? Who is he really, and why is he on this quest to unveil the shadowy world of Chinese elite politics? Mike and Alex don’t have all the answers, but they are two of the best people in the world to shed light on what is profound and what is puffery in Guo’s version of events.Dramatis personæ:To read more on Guo Wengui himself, see our narrative explainer and a compilation of more recent news on Guo from SupChina and beyond.In order of mention in the podcast:1.  Yue Qingzhi 岳庆芝, Guo Wengui’s wife, lives in New York, according to Guo. Yet she has not been seen in public nor by Mike and Alex, even though they have spent entire days at Guo’s penthouse. 2. Wang Qishan 王岐山, the leader of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).3. Li Keqiang 李克强, the current premier of China’s State Council, formerly a Party secretary in Henan Province where Guo claims to have met him.4. Wu Yi 吴仪 served in top ministerial positions negotiating trade and managing public health in the early 21st century. Guo claims to have developed a relationship with her back in Henan.5. Wu Guanzheng 吴官正 served as secretary for CCDI from 2002 to 2007.6. Ma Jian 马建, the now-jailed close associate of Guo who served as vice minister of State Security from 2006 to 2015.7. Liu Zhihua 刘志华, the former vice mayor of Beijing who was dismissed in 2006. Liu received a suspended death sentence for taking bribes of over 6 million yuan ($885,000) in October 2008.8. He Guoqiang 贺国强, the predecessor to Wang Qishan as secretary of the CCDI. Guo alleges that his son He Jintao 贺锦涛 had a financial stake in Founder Securities at the time Guo tried to muscle his way into the company (the Times has confirmed this).9. HNA Group, formerly Hainan Airlines, a politically connected

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Leland Lazarus, an American diplomat stationed in Barbados. Leland is a China specialist, and the conversation focuses on the U.S. response to growing Chinese influence in the Caribbean — an area that the U.S. has long considered its backyard, and a region that is home to many of the states that still maintain diplomatic relations with the Republic of China or Taiwan.7:41: Beijing’s diplomatic aspirations 12:28: How China is getting involved in island economies14:17: Sentiments in the region toward Chinese investment23:53: Taiwanese and Chinese diplomatic recognition34:13: COVID-19 and the impact on American and Chinese influence in the regionRecommendations:Jeremy: Secrets of Snakes: The Science Beyond the Myths, by David A. Steen. He can also be found on Twitter @AlongsideWild. Leland: The popular Chinese-language podcast Story FM, an association promoting black engagement in East Asia called the National Association for Black Engagement in Asia, and the U.S. Foreign Service — check out career options here. Kaiser: A Beijing-based folk metal band called Chǔgē 楚歌 (Songs of Chu).This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Susan Thornton, former senior U.S. diplomat, returns to the Sinica Podcast this week. This conversation was recorded during the Princeton U.S.-China Coalition virtual event on August 1, 2020. Kaiser and Susan discuss the value of American diplomacy with China and if such engagement can help salvage what remains of a deeply strained bilateral relationship between China and the United States. 9:27: Swapping diplomacy for machismo at the State Department23:06: The sharp falloff in candidates entering the U.S. Foreign Service28:29: Fatalism and China34:08: Distrust and vilify, Washington’s new China policyRecommendations:Susan: Mr. X and the Pacific: George F. Kennan and American Policy in East Asia, by Paul J. Heer. Kaiser: The TV show Better Call Saul, available on Netflix.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Adam Tooze, professor of history at Columbia University and author of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, about the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the U.S. and China, and how it has affected their position in the emerging geopolitical contest.6:45: American power and political authority14:01: China’s power during the pandemic20:27: Trump’s deliberate strategy of “stress testing” 33:24: The Trump administration’s full-court press against the CCPRecommendations:Jeremy: Wu Fei’s Music Daily: an email newsletter with an original piece of music every day of the week by a composer and guzheng virtuoso. (Disclosure: She is his wife.) Adam: The Feast of the Goat: A Novel, written by Mario Vargas Llosa and translated by Edith Grossman.Kaiser: The Hunt for Vulcan: ...And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe, by Thomas Levenson.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Sir Danny Alexander, vice president and corporate secretary of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and former Liberal Democrat MP and chief secretary to the Treasury of the United Kingdom. Sir Danny gives an overview of how Asia’s financial sector has been impacted by COVID-19.5:27: The United Kingdom’s decision to join AIIB11:49: AIIB and its accountability framework in decision making25:16: How U.S.-China relations have affected AIIB34:00: What AIIB is pushing investors toward nowRecommendations:Danny: Tengger Cavalry, a heavy metal band from Inner Mongolia.  Kaiser: The heavy metal bands Ego Fall and Nine Treasures.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy talk to Wall Street Journal reporters Bob Davis and Lingling Wei about their great new book, Superpower Showdown: How the Battle Between Trump and Xi Threatens a New Cold War.5:11: The increasingly insulated Chinese political elite18:08: Chinese import competition and its effect on U.S. manufacturing employment28:27: Líu Hè 刘鹤 and internal politics within Chinese trade negotiations41:28: Chinese negotiators’ perceptions of their American counterparts1:03:29: Huawei’s role in the trade warRecommendations: Jeremy: This Chinese-to-pinyin generation tool by 蛙蛙工具 (“Frog Tools”). Conversely, Jeremy does NOT recommend Quibi. Lingling: The book Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Joan Chang. Bob: The new TV series Perry Mason, available on HBO, as well as the Australian TV series Rake.Kaiser: The dark comedy TV series Search Party, available on HBO Max. This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Andy Purdy, chief security officer of Huawei USA, and Paul Triolo, practice head of geotechnology at the Eurasia Group. They explore the complexities of the 5G ecosystem, challenges to cybersecurity on 5G networks, the process of standards setting in advanced telecommunications, and how the Trump administration's animus toward Huawei might ultimately handicap the U.S. in this vital emerging technology.5:18: What 5G will enable us to do18:06: 5G standard setting bodies and their functions29:55: China’s involvement in the standard setting process37:05: 5G deployment around the world50:59: The collateral damage done by banning HuaweiRecommendations:Andy: A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, and The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth, by M. Scott Peck.Paul: Superpower Showdown: How the Battle Between Trump and Xi Threatens a New Cold War by Bob Davis and Lingling Wei, and The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. Kaiser: The YouTube channel of Joe Parrish, a content creator and guitarist.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Late on the night of June 15, a deadly melee erupted on the banks of the Galwan River, in a disputed region called Ladakh, high in the mountains between China and India. To help guide a discussion on this landmark event in China-India relations, Kaiser welcomes back Ananth Krishnan, a longtime correspondent for The Hindu, who is based in Beijing. Ananth discusses the context of the clash, which pits two massive, nuclear-armed states with increasingly nationalistic populations and growing regional ambitions against each other, and assesses the prospects for a settlement of the long-standing border dispute.5:56: Context behind the India-China border clash17:49: Indian sentiments toward China before the Galwan Valley skirmish33:30: India’s future in the global geopolitical system43:19: What could be ahead for the India-China relationshipRecommendations: Ananth: Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy, by Shivshankar Menon, and a docuseries that explores the creation of the hit TV series The Mandalorian, titled Disney Gallery: Star Wars: The Mandalorian.Kaiser: The Takshashila PLA Insight newsletter, by Suyash Desai, and The Expanse, a sci-fi series available on Amazon Prime Video. This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser speaks with Michael Berry, the translator of the Wuhan-based writer Fang Fang’s controversial Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City. Michael discusses Fang Fang’s body of work and how her daily online posts on WeChat (which were compiled to become her book) drew the ire of critics who have denounced the diary as an act of national betrayal and have even leveled threats against both the author and the translator. Michael Berry is a professor of contemporary Chinese cultural studies and the director of the Center for Chinese Studies at UCLA. 5:21: Reflections on Fang Fang’s Soft Burial 10:42: Fang Fang’s diary, and its backlash 21:08: An excerpt from Wuhan Diary 31:07: COVID-19: The common enemy of humankind Recommendations:Michael: The album Free Spirit, by the band Chandresh Kudwa. For a taste, you can listen to the title track here. Kaiser: The mockumentary TV show called What We Do in the Shadows.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Bloomberg’s chief economist, Tom Orlik, about his new book, China: The Bubble That Never Pops. A longtime resident of Beijing, Tom wrote for the Wall Street Journal before joining Bloomberg as chief Asia economist. His book argues that Beijing's leaders have learned valuable lessons from their own history and from the experiences of other countries, and applied them well to China's own economy. 5:33: The bears have it wrong on China10:08: Debt obligations and local government finance18:29: What the Chinese leadership has learned, and what it hasn’t30:21: Shadow loans, and the shadow banking sector 47:42: The tools that China’s central banks have to deal with riskRecommendations:Tom: China’s Unfinished Economic Revolution, by Nicholas R. Lardy, and The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 1: The Golden Days, by Cáo Xuěqín 曹雪芹, translated by David Hawkes.Kaiser: The 2010 Chinese television series Three Kingdoms.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, we continue with the ongoing California series of podcasts that Kaiser recorded last winter, and present a conversation taped in December, when he chatted with Margaret (Molly) Roberts, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. Molly also co-directs the China Data Lab at the 21st Century China Center, and her latest book, Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall, takes a deep, data-driven look at the way that internet censorship functions, and how it impacts Chinese internet users. 15:21: Dispelling two narratives about China’s internet censorship25:24: Distracting online communities by digitally flooding forums32:43: How censorship affects those who experience it41:52: How the discussion around Chinese internet censorship has evolvedRecommendations:Molly: Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor, by Virginia Eubanks. Kaiser: The Syllabus, by Evgeny Morozov: A website offering curated syllabi featuring text, audio, and video on a range of topics, including technology, global affairs, arts and culture, and more.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Kaiser and Jeremy speak with Michael Schuman, a reporter and writer who’s been covering China for 23 years, about his new book, Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World. The book sets out to present world history as China has understood it, and what that understanding of history tells us about what the China of today really wants. 11:12: Notable historical books on China that have withstood the test of time17:48: What Chinese exceptionalism means34:45: When historical context matters, and when it doesn’t42:11: Michael Schuman’s insights on what China wants Recommendations:Jeremy: The work of SupChina’s very own society and culture editor, Jiayun Feng. Click here to explore more of her work. Michael: The Analects, a work attributed to Confucius and his peers.Kaiser: The “Frankenstein” That Wasn’t: A Realistic Appraisal of Today’s China, an essay by Damien Ma of MacroPolo. Like the podcasts at SupChina? Help us out by taking this brief survey.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Max Fisher, one of The Interpreter columnists for the New York Times, on what U.S. media coverage got right — and wrong — about the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, and the concerning parallels between 2002 and 2020.8:33: American media coverage of the outbreak15:14: Dehumanizing the disease in China22:17: The role of the media in American political discourse39:11: Moving the American consensus point on ChinaRecommendations:Max: The Farewell, by Lulu Wang. Kaiser: Eternal Life: A Novel, by Dara Horn.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.