What's the deal with the Red New Deal?

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy welcome Lizzi Lee (李其 Lǐ Qi), SupChina contributor and host of the excellent Chinese-language YouTube channel Wall Street Today, and Jude Blanchette, Freeman Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), to talk about the spate of regulatory actions, new rules, and Party-led initiatives that, taken together, we at SupChina have started calling the “Red New Deal.” Can these be understood as different facets of a larger, overarching program to remake China’s economy and society? Or are they better understood as distinct moves by different bureaucracies within the Party-state that happen to coincide in time? Listen in as we try to sort through what it all means.

11:42 - Lizzi’s contrarian take on whether the new regulation adds up to something bigger

15:00 - The logic of the political calendar in China

22:56 - What did the response to the Li Guangman viral post mean?

33:14 - Kevin Rudd’s take on what it all means – the “red thread”

43:32 - No, this isn’t the Cultural Revolution

53:00 - Is this a return to true communism?

57:34 - Is Xi Jinping China’s biggest tiger mom?

A transcript of this interview is available on SupChina.com.

Recommendations

Jeremy: NüVoices Podcast: Barabara Demick on Eat the Buddha, the final NüVoices episode on SupChina; and the Vice video on YouTube, How China's Queer Youth Built An Underground Ballroom Scene.

Lizzi: Desmond Shum’s book Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China.

Jude: The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System by Milovan Djilas.

Kaiser: Shutdown: How COVID Shook the World Economy by Adam Tooze; Reservation Dogs (TV show from FX).

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