Sinica Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Yangyang Cheng Live at NEXT China Dec 12, 2019

Show notes

In a show taped in front of a live audience at SupChina’s NEXT China conference, Kaiser and Jeremy chatted with particle physicist Yangyang Cheng, one of the boldest new voices writing on science and contemporary China. Get to know the woman behind SupChina’s Science and China column.

2:38: A day in the life of a particle physicist

8:26: Scientific research and the state

15:15: The overlap between politics and science

24:28: Is technocracy problematic?

Recommendations:

Jeremy: A new podcast called You Can Learn Chinese, hosted by John Pasden and Jared Turner.

Yangyang: The author James Baldwin and his novels, as well as a collection of short films titled Ten Years, which depict a dystopian future for Hong Kong in the year 2025.

Kaiser: Middlemarch, by George Eliot.

This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.

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Big Brother and big data at work in Xinjiang Dec 05, 2019

Show notes

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, who covers China for Axios, was the lead reporter on an explosive leak of documents detailing the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslims in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region. This week, she joins Kaiser and Jeremy to discuss her report, titled Exposed: China’s Operating Manuals for Mass Internment and Arrest by Algorithm. The leaks include what she describes as a "manual for operating the camps," and reveal how Chinese police are using big data to identify individuals deemed at risk for Islamic extremism or separatism in Xinjiang.

9:43: What do the leaks mean?

14:53: A timeline of events in Xinjiang

18:57: The “Integrated Joint Operations Platform”

24:50: The world’s highest-stakes “testing,” in Xinjiang camps

33:58: What can, and should, the U.S. do?

Recommendations:

Jeremy: One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, by Andrea Pitzer.

Bethany: The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt, a look at totalitarian governments in the 20th century.

Kaiser: The December issue of The Atlantic, themed “How to Stop a Civil War.” With an emphasis on a few essays: The dark psychology of social networks, by Jonathan Haidt and Tobias Rose-Stockwell; Too much democracy is bad for democracy, by Jonathan Rauch and Ray La Raja; and The dishonesty of the abortion debate, by Caitlin Flanagan.

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.

Dynasty warriors: Ming vs. Qing smackdown Nov 29, 2019

Show notes

Sinica brings you a little levity for this Thanksgiving weekend: In one of the last live events taped at the storied Bookworm in Beijing, which shut its doors this month, the Royal Asiatic Society of Beijing sponsored a debate over a simple proposition: The Ming was better than the Qing. Four seasoned China-watchers battle it out for dynastic supremacy. Who will prevail?

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China and the techno-authoritarian narrative Nov 22, 2019

Show notes

In a podcast taped live for the Asia Society of Switzerland in Zurich, Kaiser is joined by Kristin Shi-Kupfer, director of the Research Area on Public Policy and Society at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin, and Evgeny Morozov, contributing editor at the New Republic and author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom and To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. They discuss the shifting narratives about the relationship between technology and authoritarian politics, and how these shifts have been affected by China’s rise as a technology power.

6:48: What we got wrong about China’s censorship regime

15:28: Was the internet ever meant to set us free?

25:20: Two competing visions for the internet

39:55: The role of the private sector versus the state

51:42: What role does the internet play in society?

Recommendations:

Kristin: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

Evgeny: An essay in the most recent version of the New Left Review, Automation and the future of work—1, by Aaron Benanav.

Kaiser: The audiobook version of A Hero Born: The Definitive Edition (The Legend of the Condor Heroes, volume 1), authored by Jin Yong and translated by Anna Holmwood.

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.

Fuchsia Dunlop on ‘The Food of Sichuan’ Nov 14, 2019

Show notes

Fuchsia Dunlop, the preeminent writer on Chinese cuisine in the English language, has published a completely revised and updated version of Land of Plenty, her classic book on Sichuan cookery, containing 70 new recipes. Her newest book is titled The Food of Sichuan. She joins Kaiser and guest host Jim Millward of Georgetown University in a discussion of this wildly popular cuisine — and how to get started as a Sichuan chef in your own kitchen.

12:18: Are there eight regional cuisines in China?

21:20: Sichuanese food going global

26:37: Sichuan cooking 101

35:01: Useful “hacks” for cooking and preparation

41:20: Food fads in China and how they migrate

Recommendations:

Jim: Give Fuchsia a follow on Instagram; Women and China’s Revolutions, by Gail Hershatter; and the Los Angeles–based Cambodian and American psychedelic rock band Dengue Fever.

Kaiser: A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism, by Adam Gopnik.

Fuchsia: Away: A Novel, by Amy Bloom; The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Cultural History in the Old South, by Michael W. Twitty; and the soon-to-be-released posthumous album, Thanks for the Dance, by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.

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Philanthropy in China, with Scott Kennedy of CSIS Nov 07, 2019

Show notes

This week on Sinica, Kaiser talks about the state of charitable giving in China with Scott Kennedy, senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Has philanthropy kept pace with the growth of wealth? And how have charities fared under Xi Jinping and China’s new laws governing NGOs and charity?

6:36: How has charity fared under Xi Jinping?

13:04: Party apprehensions about philanthropic giving

20:18: Red lines for foreign philanthropy in China

29:28: Where is Chinese funding going abroad?

34:52: How philanthropy in China has changed over time

Recommendations:

Scott: The China Hustle, by Magnolia Pictures.

Kaiser: A birthday letter to the People’s Republic, by Yangyang Cheng. She also writes the Science and China column for SupChina.

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.

Jerome Cohen on the Hong Kong protests and the law Oct 31, 2019

Show notes

In this live show taped at New York University on October 16, Jeremy and Kaiser spoke with Jerry Cohen, the doyen of American studies of Chinese law. We explore the legal foundations for the Hong Kong handover in 1997, and how imprecision has contributed to many of the difficulties playing out in Hong Kong's streets today.

5:43: Ambiguity in Hong Kong Basic Law

19:38: A look at the 2019 Hong Kong extradition bill

32:35: Changing repercussions for detained and imprisoned Hongkongers

37:59: Hong Kong’s legal system wilting under pressure from Beijing

51:08: The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019

Recommendations:

Jeremy: A series of oral histories by Ben Mauk, Weather Reports: Voices from Xinjiang.

Jerry: The works of a few individuals shining a light on the atrocities occurring in Xinjiang: James Leibold, Jim Millward, and Adrian Zenz.

Kaiser: Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation, by Andrew Marantz.

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.

Neil Thomas on regime support in the P.R.C. Oct 24, 2019

Show notes

This week on Sinica, Neil Thomas of MacroPolo sits down with Kaiser to talk about what we know — and what we don’t know — about popular support for the Chinese political leadership. Taking into account the effects of censorship and propaganda, how much “natural” regime support is left, and what explains it?

8:51: How reliable are public opinion surveys of regime support?

19:53: Ian Johnson’s NYT op-ed on the October 1 parade

22:20: The Party and the People

38:18: Anniversaries and “dark anniversaries” — the significance of 2019

43:56: Hong Kong and Party legitimacy

Recommendations:

Neil: “Twists in the Belt and Road,” by Ryan Manuel.

Kaiser: New episodes of The China History Podcast on the Warlord Period.

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.

Live from Columbia: China tech triage with Samm Sacks Oct 17, 2019

Show notes

Samm Sacks, a Cybersecurity Policy and China Digital Economy Fellow at New America, speaks with Kaiser on Huawei’s nebulous role in the U.S.-China trade war, Beijing’s long march to technological self-reliance, and the growing U.S. Commerce Department Entity List. This episode was recorded live at the Columbia China and the World Forum 2019, on September 28, 2019, at Columbia University.

4:12: Trading Huawei for soybeans

11:24: The growing Entity List

22:16: Beijing’s retaliation

25:09: Silicon Valley’s varying views

27:21: Censorship on TikTok and Bytedance

Recommendations:

Samm: Novels by Irish millennial Sally Rooney, for her ability to invoke emotions you didn’t know you had.

Kaiser: Guitar nerd galore. Effects pedals by brand Mooer — the Radar Speaker CAB Simulator, and the overdrive pedal called the Hustle Drive — as well as the JAM BUDDY by JOYO.

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.

Jude Blanchette on the Hong Kong protests Oct 10, 2019

Show notes

Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), joins Kaiser for a discussion of the ongoing Hong Kong protests, possible U.S. responses, Beijing's puzzling inaction, the perspectives of mainland Chinese, and media coverage of ongoing events in Hong Kong.

4:52: Hong Kong’s young democratic leaders

15:39: The volatility of the Hong Kong protests

27:10: Mainland sentiments on Hong Kong

38:21: Media coverage of the protests

46:04: Speaking Mandarin, a new liability in Hong Kong?

Recommendations:

Jude: How Hong Kong got to this point, an essay by Richard Bush.

Kaiser: Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, by George Packer.

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.