Sinica Podcast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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