Sinica Podcast

This week on Sinica, Wall Street Journal reporters Josh Chin and Liza Lin join the program to discuss their new book Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control. From Urumqi to Uganda and from Hangzhou to the Bronx, the book explores every facet of technological surveillance from the technocratic mindset that birthed it to its spread, with Beijing's help, to many countries of the developing world. But it also examines the role that U.S. tech companies played in giving rise to it.6:05 – The story of Tahir Hamut: a Uyghur poet living under Xinjiang’s surveillance state 12:50 – Will the Xinjiang model for surveillance be expanded to other parts of China? 16:37 – Is China actively pushing other countries to adopt its surveillance state practices? 23:26 – The case of Hangzhou: the benefits of the “smart city” model  27:17 – Is there a fundamental difference between the concept of “privacy” in China and the West? 30:55 – How Xu Bing’s film uses surveillance footage35:39 – What accounts for Chinese society’s changing views on privacy?40:12 – China’s tendency to apply an “engineering” mindset to fixing social problems47:57 – Assessing US companies’ role in enabling Chinese surveillance 52:27 – Devising a policy that effectively bans hardware used for Xinjiang surveillance1:01:03 – China’s new laws on digital data protection1:05:05 – What the social credit system’s popular narrative gets wrong 1:10:40 – An example of Chinese propaganda fabricating the surveillance system’s success  1:14:29 – The future of privacy protection in China and the WestA full transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.Recommendations:Liza: The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy PregnancyJosh: The Backstreets: A Novel from Xinjiang by Perhat Tursun (translated by Darren Byler), a short novel about life for Uyghurs in modern China; The Wok: Recipes and Techniques: by Kenji LopezKaiser: After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics and How to Fix It by Will BunchSee 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 University of Michigan political scientist Yuen Yuen Ang, who discusses a recent piece in the Journal of Democracy titled "How Resilient is the CCP?" The essay examines how China's bureaucracy remains surprisingly competent and even relatively autonomous despite Xi Jinping's highly personalistic style of rule.3:51 – Summarizing debates on Chinese governance in the current China watcher field 8:43 – Defining the concept of institutionalization and contextualizing it to China13:39 – Explaining Xi’s bureaucratic objectives: maintaining competence but limiting autonomy18:57 – Remaining areas of autonomy for China’s state bureaucracy22:11 – Key areas where Xi weakened bureaucracy26:08 – Institutionalization prior to the Xi era 29:00 – Main sources of resilience and threat under Xi’s new model for authoritarianism 31:45 – Fundamental difference between Mao and Xi34:52 – The revival of state bureaucracy and technocrats after Mao’s death40:13 – How do we understand the tension between expertise and ideology in Xi’s governance agenda?  46:15 – Historical roots of technocracy in the Chinese government49:09 – The CCP’s technocratic bureaucracy as an integral source of resilienceA complete transcript of this podcast is available on TheChinaProject.com.Recommendations: Yuen Yuen: Chinese drama series Zǒuxiàng gònghé 走向共和 (Towards the Republic); and Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David RemnickKaiser: Children of Earth and Sky, A Brightness Long Ago, and All the Seas of the World — a historical fantasy novel trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay 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 the Cornell political scientist Jessica Chen Weiss, who is back in Ithaca after a year spent as a CFR International Affairs Fellow working in the State Department's Office of Policy Planning. She talks about an important essay published in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, titled "The China Trap: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Perilous Logic of Zero-Sum Competition,” which calls on the U.S. to formulate an affirmative vision for the relationship with China instead of pursuing an ad-hoc policy predicated simply on countering what China does.7:17 – Moving away from the current zero-sum framing of U.S.-China competition and adopting an “affirmative vision”12:29 – Shortcomings of the U.S. response to China’s strategy in the developing world15:11 – How competition with China framing has adverse consequences for domestic American politics  18:37 – Can the U.S. benefit from adopting certain aspects of the Chinese approach? 20:49 – The steps needed to return to normalized U.S.-China diplomacy25:00 – How can the US properly calibrate its China threat assessment? 34:05 – The relationship between China’s domestic challenges and its foreign policyA transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.Recommendations:Jessica: Stephen Walt and Dani Rodrik’s essay on a establishing a new global order in Foreign Affairs [forthcoming]; and After Engagement: Dilemmas in U.S.-China Security Relations by Jacques deLisle and Avery GoldsteinKaiser: The Lord of the Rings trilogy audiobooks narrated by Andy SerkisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser and Jeremy welcome back Tom Orlik, Bloomberg's chief economist and author of the book China: The Bubble that Never Pops. Ahead of the release of the new, updated edition of his book, we ask him about all that has changed in the two-and-a-half years since the publication of the first edition — and whether the real estate crisis, the Common Prosperity agenda, China's fraying foreign relations, or the COVID lockdowns are finally going to bring about the crash long predicted by the "China bears."4:40 – Tom offers a succinct summary of the chief arguments in the first edition of China: The Bubble that Never Pops8:05 – Is China looking quite as clever as it was four months ago?11:08 – The Chinese economy’s great COVID shutdown stress test13:53 – China’s stimulus response20:22 – The future of the Common Prosperity agenda25:49 – China’s push for tech self-sufficiency33:00 – China’s present real estate crisis38:15 – Xi Jinping’s priorities: triage for the ailing Chinese economy44:00 – How bad will the damage be from China’s 2022 lockdowns?A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.Recommendations:Jeremy: The Parker series,: crime fiction by Richard Stark, pen name of Donald E. WestlakeTom: Surveillance State by Josh Chin and Liza Lin; and Coalitions of the Weak by Victor ShihKaiser: The TV drama from Hulu, The BearSee 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 welcome Leroy Chiao, a NASA astronaut who flew three shuttle missions and served as commander of the International Space Station for over six months. Leroy is also very knowledgeable about China's space program and was the first American astronaut to visit the Astronaut Center of China outside of Beijing. He discusses the abortive history of Sino-American space collaboration, attitudes toward China's space program in the U.S., and China's impressive accomplishments and its grand ambitions for space.4:27 – How Leroy became an astronaut9:09 – The effects of long-term weightlessness15:10 – Leroy’s access to the Astronaut Center of China18:16 – The peak years of Sino-U.S. collaboration in space exploration23:11 – The Wolf Amendment and the end of Sino-American space collaboration26:36 – Leroy on the most impressive accomplishments of the Chinese space program37:53 – U.S.-China competition as a driver of advances in space technologies48:04 – Sino-Russian space cooperation?49:12 – The weaponization of outer space52: 58 – RecommendationsA complete transcript of this podcast is available on SupChina.com.Recommendations:Jeremy:  Nuremberg Diary by G.M. Gilbert.Leroy: Old Henry, a micro-Western filmKaiser: Putin by Philip Short; and a preview of a forthcoming paper about the Cyberspace Administration of China, CAC, written by Jamie HorsleySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser chats with Ali Wyne, senior analyst at the Eurasia Group's global macro geopolitics practice and author of the brand new book America's Great Power Opportunity: Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition. Ali's book calls on American policymakers to craft a strategy that is guided by confidence and a clear vision of American renewal and emphasizes America's competitive advantages, rather than being determined by the behavior of our notional competitors, especially China.2:09 – The framework of great power competition and building a foreign policy that is not dictated by the actions of other great powers16:13 – The competitive challenges from China and Russia25:38 – America's psychological anxiety over China's rise39:30 – Eight principles for building a new foreign policy: Principle one – renew America's competitive advantages51:35 – Principle two: regard the power of America's domestic example, not as a supplement to external competitiveness, but as a precondition for it.56:22 – Principle three: do not use competitive anxiety as a crutch and principle four: frame internal renewal as an explicit objective of U.S. foreign policy, not as a desired byproduct1:01:19 – Principle five: enlisting allies and partners in affirmative undertakings1:08:26 – Principle six: appreciate the limits to American unilateral influence1:13:38 – Principle seven: pursue cooperative opportunities that can temper the destabilizing effects of great power competition1:17:29 – Principle eight: rebalance toward the Asia Pacific within economic focus1:20:12 – How Russia's invasion of Ukraine has affected the framework laid out in Ali's bookA complete transcript of this interview is available at SupChina.com.Recommendations:Ali: The Foreign Affairs essay "Beijing Is Still Playing the Long Game on Taiwan: Why China Isn’t Poised to Invade" by Andrew NathanKaiser: The Swedish TV show Clark on NetflixSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In a week dominated by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, Kaiser welcomes John Culver, who served as national intelligence officer for East Asia from 2015 to 2017 and as a CIA analyst focusing on China for 35 years. John offers his perspective on Pelosi's trip and provides important context with a discussion of the last Taiwan Straits Crisis, in 1995-96 — a crisis touched off by Lee Teng-hui's decision to visit Cornell University, his alma mater. John also draws important parallels to the Diaoyu/Senkaku crisis of the fall of 2012, after the Japanese government nationalized the disputed islands.2:47 – A walkthrough of the last Taiwan Strait crisis13:45 – How China's growing capabilities could affect its decision-making in future Taiwan crises19:52 – Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan and the political environment surrounding her decision25:14 – Explaining China's interpretation of U.S. actions and the Chinese domestic political context32:21 – Parallels to the 2012 Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands episode35:22 – The potential fallout of this crisisA complete transcript of this podcast is available at SupChina.com.Recommendations: John: The late Alan Romberg's exegesis of the US-China negotiating record, "Rein In at the Brink of the Precipice" and Ryan Hass's book Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive InterdependenceKaiser: Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada — and the town of Canmore as a great place to stay nearby.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 offer listeners a sneak preview of one of the new shows coming soon to the Sinica Network: Café & Seda, or Coffee and Silk. While this episode is in English, the podcast will be mostly in Spanish — our first non-English show. The host is Parsifal D'Sola, who is Executive Director of the ABF China Latin America Research Center and a nonresident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. Parsifal is a native of Venezuela, and his focus is on Sino-Latin American relations. Between 2019 and 2020, he acted as Chinese Foreign Policy Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Interim Government of Venezuela of Juan Guaido.In this episode, Parsifal talks with Dr. Evan Ellis. Evan is a research professor of Latin American Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. His work focuses on the region’s relationships with China and other non-Western Hemisphere actors as well as transnational organized crime and populism in the region. He previously served on the Secretary of State’s policy planning staff with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as international narcotics and law enforcement issues. Evan has also been awarded the Order of Military Merit José María Córdova by the Colombian government for his scholarship on security issues in the region.Latin America has been the world’s most affected region due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Poverty levels have risen considerably, and economic contraction is several points higher than the global average. How will this affect Sino- Latin American relations? Furthermore, while the United States increasingly loses influence across the region, Chinese foreign policy has become more sophisticated and localized, filling many of the spaces traditionally filled by the United States and other Western actors. Evan helps us answer these questions and offers recommendations both for the United States in dealing with China’s growing role in the region, as well as advice for Latin American countries in managing the challenges that greater engagement with China will bring about.      A complete transcript of this podcast is available at SupChina.com.Recommendations:China Engages Latin America: Distorting Development and Democracy? By Evan EllisLinks of interest:Articles from Evan Ellis at Global AmericansAndrés Bello Foundation - China Latin America Research CenterTwitter: @FABChinaLatam | @REvanEllisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser chats with Silvia Lindtner of the University of Michigan about her book Prototype Nation. In a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss how China's maker movement inspired the Party leadership to encourage tech entrepreneurship, how Shenzhen rose to such prominence in technology production, the fetishization of the shanzhai movement, and much more.5:29 How narratives on Chinese tech innovation have shifted14:10 What made China's technological innovation possible?20:37 State support for the maker movement and mass innovation29:52 The technocratic and entrepreneurial mindset of the CCP38:45 Techno-optimism in China versus the West45:57 Shenzhen's "hacker paradise" as a transnational project50:02 Orientalism in the West's fascination with shanzhai, or copycat, cultureA complete transcript of this podcast is available at SupChina.com.RecommendationsSilvia: In This Moment, We Are Happy by Chen Qiufan and Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures by Kalindi Vora and Neda AtanasoskiKaiser:  Sarmat Archery based in Kiev, UkraineSee 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 Triolo, Senior VP for China and Technology Policy Lead at Dentons Global Advisors ASG, formerly and probably better known still as Albright Stonebridge Group. Paul provides an in-depth overview of today’s semiconductor landscape, from export control issues, to the unstable equilibrium between U.S., China, and Taiwan’s industries. He walks us through the strategic importance of semiconductors in U.S. national security considerations — and how unintended consequences of our current policies toward China might actually end up undermining U.S. national security. 04:45 – An overview of semiconductor geopolitics and supply chains20:33 – Why the U.S. is cutting China off from advanced semiconductor technologies27:02 – The shift in technology export controls from Trump to Biden32:08 – The CHIPS Act and subsidies for the semiconductor industry37:43 – Deterrence and Taiwan’s semiconductor industry as a “silicon shield”46:16 – Lessons learned from the chip shortage52:30 – Why is the U.S lighting a fire to Chinese self-sufficiency efforts?57:57 – The implications of Pelosi’s planned visit to TaiwanA transcript of this podcast is available at SupChina.com.Recommendations:Paul: Rob Dunn, A Natural History of the Future; and Ryan Hass, Stronger: Adapting America's China Strategy in an Age of Competitive InterdependenceKaiser: The Boys on Amazon PrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.