Sinica Podcast

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with the Columbia historian Adam Tooze, who returns to the program a year after his first appearance. A prolific writer and wide-ranging public intellectual, Adam was trained as a Germanist and has focused, in his writings, largely on economic history. His books include The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931, and Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crisis Changed the World. In July, Adam published an ambitious essay titled “Why there is no solution to our age of crisis without China” in The New Statesman, in which he lays out a brief history of China from the crisis of the Qing Empire in the 19th century through China’s “Century of Humiliation” up to the project of national rejuvenation, which has been the focus of Xí Jìnpíng’s 习近平 time in office. Adam talks about why he feels it’s important to occasionally venture outside one’s own field of specialization, as he did in writing on China as a non-specialist; the folly of two oft-cited historical analogies, comparing China with both Wilhelmine and Hitlerian Germany; the importance of comparative history in making sense of contemporary international relations; and America’s difficulty, when it comes to China, in accepting pluralism from anything but a position of dominance.16:02: What we get wrong about the Thucydides Trap and other historical analogies about China21:17: Why the modern P.R.C. is not a mature fascist state28:58: The iterative nature of China’s economic modernization 46:59: China as a civilization vs. China as a nation stateA transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com.Recommendations:Adam: Stalingrad, by Vasily Grossman.Kaiser: The Spanish-language television series The Legend of El Cid.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 Peter Martin, a correspondent for Bloomberg based in Washington, D.C., about his book, China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy. This highly readable and informative book tells the story of China’s diplomatic corps from its creation ex nihilo under the guidance of Zhōu Ēnlái 周恩来 during the Communist Party’s years in Yan’an in the 1930s and 1940s through the foundation of the P.R.C., the vicissitudes of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and the period of reform and opening up to the current, more assertive, and often pugilistic present under Xí Jìnpíng 习近平. Peter also offers his take on last week’s interview on Sinica with Ambassador Huáng Píng 黄屏, the consul general of China’s New York consulate.7:48: The centrality of the national humiliation narrative to the institutional foundations of China’s Foreign Ministry15:02: The contributions and diplomatic styles of prominent contemporaries such as Qián Qíchēn 钱其琛, Dài Bǐngguó 戴秉国, Yáng Jiéchí 杨洁篪, and Wáng Yì 王毅24:46: The rise of Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhào Lìjiān 赵立坚47:28: Understanding Chinese diplomacy’s hard turn amidst a culture of disciplineA transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com.Recommendations: Jeremy: Hummingbird feeders with homemade sugar water nectar.Peter: The podcast series Dolly Parton's America. Kaiser: The movie The Green Knight, based on the Arthurian legend, by David Lowery. 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’re pleased to present a conversation with Ambassador Huáng Píng 黄屏, a veteran Chinese diplomat who has been consul general of China’s New York Consulate since November 2018. He formerly served as China’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, and as consul general of China’s Chicago Consulate. The interview, recorded on July 22, covers a range of topics in U.S.-China relations from human rights to Taiwan, and from COVID-19 to China’s so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy.”13:22: What Americans should understand about the Communist Party of China38:15: Evaluating the Biden administration’s position on China41:25: The American perspective on Taiwan46:20: The impact of the pandemic on Chinese people50:54: Beijing’s policies on Xinjiang A transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com.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 Bill Bikales, who recently returned to the U.S. after 15 years in China as a developmental economist with the United Nations. In June, Bill published a paper titled “Reflections on Poverty Reduction in China” for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), raising important questions about China’s claims about poverty reduction but giving due credit for its impressive successes. In the paper, Bill situates the Chinese leadership’s bold push for the eradication of extreme poverty in a historical context, questions Beijing’s use of 1978 as a benchmark for measuring progress in poverty reduction, and offers suggestions for what Beijing must do to make poverty reduction sustainable.5:38: How the significance of poverty relief in China’s history has shaped the CCP’s priorities22:15: The detriments of the hukou (户口 hùkǒu) system on reducing poverty sustainably 46:00: Addressing the next set of poverty challenges and gaps in the current social protection system51:30: Deducing lessons from China’s poverty reduction achievements A transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com.Recommendations: Bill: Destiny of the Republic, by Candice Millard, and the car-sharing company Turo. Kaiser: The audiobook version of The Ill-Made Knight, by Christian Cameron, and the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.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 Yiqing Xu, an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, about his work in applying modern methods in political science to the politics of contemporary China. In a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss qualitative vs. quantitative approaches and how the debate parallels the debate between the area studies approach to China and the discipline-centered approach, as well as the pitfalls of the current data obsession in the social sciences. They also look at some of Yiqing’s recent scholarship on China’s ideological landscape, and preview a longitudinal comparative study looking at Chinese students at elite universities in China and their compatriots studying in the United States.7:44: The role of social scientists and the quantitative vs. qualitative methods debate in the political science field19:18: Mapping ideology in China with the “Chinese Political Compass” data set 31:21: Why policy preferences in authoritarian states matter40:33: How discrimination in the United States impacts Chinese students’ attitudes toward the political system in China A transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com.Recommendations: Yiqing: The iconic Japanese rock band X Japan. Kaiser: The album Discipline (1981) by the progressive rock band King Crimson.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 Thomas Pepinsky and Jessica Chen Weiss, both professors of government at Cornell University, about their recent essay in Foreign Affairs, “The Clash of Systems? Washington Should Avoid Ideological Competition With Beijing.” In that essay, they argue that, despite all the talk of Chinese authoritarianism as an existential threat to American democracy, Beijing is mostly on the defensive, and does not seek to export its political system. This is not to say that American democracy is not under threat: It very much is — but not from China. Tom, a specialist on Southeast Asia, looks at the ASEAN countries and their relations with Beijing to show that ideological affinity is not a predictor of close ties to China. And Jessica offers an update to her influential 2019 essay on China’s effort to “make the world safe for autocracy.”8:08: Defining ideology and ideological competition 19:57: Beijing’s transactional conduct with nations in Southeast Asia and the geostrategic implications25:20: How the current rhetoric in the United States fuels Sinophobia and anti-Asian racism36:01: China as the disgruntled stakeholder A transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com.Recommendations:Tom: The French television shows Lupin and The Bureau. Jessica: “The Ezra Klein Show” podcast interview with Jamila Michener, and anything written by Yangyang Cheng.Kaiser: Music to read by: The Goldberg Variations (particularly the 1982 version performed by Glenn Gould and the version performed by Lang Lang), The Well-Tempered Clavier, and The French Suites, by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the YouTube series “What Makes This Song Great?,” by Rick Beato.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 Isabella Weber, assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, about her new book, How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate. Meticulously researched and persuasively argued, her book makes important contributions to our understanding of a critical period in China’s recent history: the decade of the 1980s, when a fierce debate between “package reformers” supporting sweeping price liberalization and gradualists who argued that state participation in the market was critical to dampen inflation and maintain social stability. And it sheds light on the run-up to the student-led demonstrations of 1989.12:20: Debunking a conventional wisdom on China’s economy22:05: The relationship between states and markets40:01: A universal need for reform in the early 1980s1:10:47: Student intellectuals in 1988 and the “full steam ahead” campRecommendations:Isabella: The movie Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa and Cold War, directed by Paweł Aleksander Pawlikowski.Kaiser: Assigned reading from Kaiser: The Chinese Communist Party: A Chinese Century in Ten Lives, edited by Timothy Cheek, Klaus Mühlhahn, and Hans van de Wen.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 historian Timothy Cheek of the University of British Columbia, political scientist Elizabeth Perry of Harvard, and our very own Jeremy Goldkorn, editor-in-chief of SupChina, in a wide-ranging discussion of the Chinese Communist Party on the occasion of its 100th birthday. The three each contributed chapters to a new volume called The Chinese Communist Party: A Century in 10 Lives, edited by Timothy Cheek, Klaus Mülhahn, and Hans van de Ven. Don’t miss this one!8:59: Cosmopolitan traditions within the CCP13:10: Continuity and change within the Party20:19: The oscillations between flexibility and rigidity34:25: Intellectuals and their relationship with the Party50:37: Wang Guangmei and the Peach Garden ExperienceA full transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com.Recommendations:Jeremy: The Dairy Restaurant, by Ben Katchor. Elizabeth: Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement, by Cheng Li, and The Wuhan Lockdown, by Yang Guobin.  Timothy: The Internationale, performed by heavy metal band Tang Dynasty. Kaiser: The July/August edition of Foreign Affairs, especially the pieces by Wang Jisi and Yan Xuetong.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 Yong Cai, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This episode — the first in-person interview since February 2020 — looks at the results of China’s 2020 census, the announcement of the much-maligned “three-child policy” that the Chinese government proclaimed shortly after the results of the census were released, and other measures the Chinese leadership is considering to avoid the demographic crisis it now faces.  6:55: China’s top-heavy demographic structure20:38: Techno-optimism and its impact on the declining workforce30:18: Implications for women in family planning38:53: An alternative approach to inclusive population studiesRecommendations:Yong Cai: A Village With My Name: A Family History of China's Opening to the World, by Scott Tong. Kaiser: The Kominsky Method, available on Netflix, and All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel, by Anthony Doerr.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shortly after Deborah Seligsohn was last on Sinica, in April, the lab leak hypothesis seemed suddenly to gain traction — at least in American media. This week, Kaiser invites Deborah back to the show to talk about why the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a notion long regarded by virologists as less probable than zoonotic transmission, has burst back into the conversation. Deborah served as the State Department’s Environment, Science, Technology and Health Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 2003 to 2007. She is an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University in Philadelphia. 3:00: The persistence of the lab leak theory11:40: Navigating the political and institutional landscape within China 25:36: A view from Beijing’s perspective31:02: Eliciting cooperation from Beijing, and what should our priorities beRecommendations:Deborah: The podcast This Week in Virology, particularly episodes 760 and 762, which touch on the COVID-19 pandemic. Kaiser: Richard L. Watkins, a candidate running for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina. 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 Andrew Jones, a Helsinki-based reporter who over the last several years has secured a place as the go-to English-language journalist covering China’s space program. With the successful arrival of the Tianwen spacecraft in Martian orbit and the deployment of the Zhurong Mars rover, China is catching up quickly with NASA in space exploration milestones. But China’s space program also comes in for criticism for its opacity and for potentially dangerous practices — like the uncontrolled reentry of a large Long March 5B rocket in early May. Andrew gives the latest on China’s outer-space ambitions, including planned missions to Jupiter’s outermost Galilean moon, Callisto, and beyond the edge of our solar system.7:09: A look at the China National Space Administration13:02: Major missions done by China’s space program24:31: U.S. hesitance toward space collaboration with China48:39: China’s private space companies52:53: Potential future Chinese space missionsRecommendations:Andrew: The TV series The Expanse, available on Amazon Prime Video, the FIRST UP daily newsletter from Space News, the Axios Space newsletter, and the podcast Moonrise by the Washington Post.Kaiser: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.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 Yingyi Ma, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University and the author of the book Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education. Yingyi’s book, which focuses on the specific experiences of Chinese undergraduates, examines the push-and-pull factors that have made studying abroad — and studying in the U.S. in particular — a “new education gospel” for many parents in China. She discusses why after 2006 Chinese students surged into American colleges and universities, and how despite their eagerness to build “cosmopolitan capital” by studying in the U.S., they’ve faced challenges in navigating American higher education.6:56: A duality of ambition and anxiety13:00: “Cosmopolitan capital” and globalization39:57: The sacrifices made by Chinese families and researchers43:58: American higher education and Chinese undergraduate students46:14: With regard to education, the grass is always greener on the other sideRecommendations: Yingyi: Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, by Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell, and the popular Chinese-language podcast Story FM. Kaiser: The app Weee!, specializing in Asian and Hispanic food delivery. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Have China and Russia entered into a de facto anti-American alliance? Is Russia, which in Soviet days was for a time the “older brother” to Mao’s China, now comfortable with playing junior partner to Xi’s China? And has the United States, which in its opening to China demonstrated formidable acuity in managing the “strategic triangle,” now jettisoned that model and its logic? This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Ali Wyne, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's Global Macro practice, to discuss the motivations, the capabilities, and the strategies of Beijing and Moscow in their dealings with Washington — and with each other.3:54: What of the rules-based international order?15:04: The relationship between China and Russia27:35: Inflection points in the early 2000s48:52: Strategies and tactics employed by China and Russia Recommendations:Ali: Stronger: Adapting America's China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence, by Ryan Hass, and the documentary series Chasing Life, by Sanjay Gupta. Kaiser: The audiobook for The Committed, written by Viet Thanh Nguyen and narrated by Francois Chau. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Veteran China scholar Orville Schell has written a dozen books on China, but his latest book — which Schell published at the age of 80 — is his first novel. My Old Home: A Novel of Exile is a bildungsroman that follows the life of Li Wende and his father, Li Shutong, from the early days of the Cultural Revolution to the tragedy of Tiananmen in 1989. This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Orville about the windows on China that nonfiction is unable to open but that fiction can; the challenges of writing a novel after a lifetime of publishing nonfiction; and continuity and change in modern Chinese history. Recommendations:Orville: The works of the famous writer and essayist Lu Xun, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, by Ai Weiwei (set for release in November 2021), and Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao's China, by Lian Xi.  Kaiser: Interior Chinatown: A Novel, by Charles Yu. 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 Margaret (Maggie) Lewis, a professor of law at Seton Hall University, about her work on the U.S. Department of Justice’s “China Initiative.” Launched under former attorney general Jeff Sessions in November 2018, the China Initiative sought to bring criminal cases against perpetrators of industrial espionage benefiting China, but as Maggie argues, it has in fact resulted in discriminatory ethnic profiling and the criminalization of what she calls “China-ness.” Listen to the end to hear Kaiser’s impression of Cookie Monster as a death metal vocalist.8:24: Viewing China as an existential threat17:44: Where the framing and implementation of the China Initiative falls short28:11: Prosecuting “China-ness”37:38: The impact on American competitivenessRecommendations:Maggie: What Do You Do With an Idea?, What Do You Do With a Problem?, and What Do You Do With a Chance?, by Kobi Yamada; also, Beautiful Oops!, by Barney Saltzberg. Kaiser: The album Blackwater Park, by the Swedish progressive metal band Opeth. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Prince Han Fei, or Hán Fēizǐ 韓非子, is perhaps the most influential Chinese thinker that many Westerners have never heard of. With Jeremy hosting Sinica this week, we bring to you a conversation recorded in November 2020 featuring writer and journalist Zhā Jiànyīng 渣建英 and Geremie R. Barmé, editor of China Heritage. The three discuss the overlooked salience of the words of Han Fei in understanding modern China, the concept of legalism and its relation to the contemporary interpretation of fazhi (法治 fǎzhì), or rule of law, and the churn of being caught between the United States and China as relations between the two great powers continue to sour. 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, 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.