Sinica Podcast

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy speak with Sulmaan Wasif Khan, assistant professor of international history and Chinese foreign relations at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, about his book, Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. He makes the case that China’s overriding concern is for maintaining the security and integrity of the state — something that, given China’s long history of foreign invasion, warlordism, civil war, and contested borders, hasn’t been easy. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 4:55: Does grand strategy need to be articulated, or communicated clearly to the general population? Usually the answer is yes, where nation states unify diplomatic, economic, and military power to pursue broadscale goals. However, China’s case is different, according to Sulmaan: “There does seem to be this overarching national objective, there is a sense in which the different categories of power [diplomacy, economics, and military] were calibrated to achieve that overarching national objective, but you don’t get it articulated that often, if at all.” 14:44: How much useful insight on contemporary Chinese politics can be gleaned by looking to the past? Sulmaan breaks it down: “China’s imperial past [is] much less grand than it’s typically considered to be… China’s empires at different points had different security threats. At various points, it wasn’t an Asia-centric order. So, simply imposing one version of the imperial past on China’s millennia of history, and saying, ‘This is the way it’s always been,’ seems to be a little misguided.” One feature from the imperial era that sticks out? Disorder. Sulmaan continues: “If you think about the Taiping Rebellion, for example, if you think about the Opium Wars — these are things that I think Chinese leaders still look to in the imperial past and worry about. The stories of the Opium Wars have never left the consciousness of the leadership, or Chinese people, for that matter. And that’s important to remember.” 30:07: “Hide your strength and bide your time” is a maxim spoken by Deng Xiaoping that has been used to define much of the era of reform and opening up. But is this truly an apt description of the time? Sulmaan states: “Hide and bide doesn’t really begin to sum up what [Deng] is up to. If you think about the sheer scale of economic change going on there, it’s kind of hard to keep that hidden — he’s almost like a kid when it comes to one country, two systems and joint development, how much he brags about those to anyone who will listen. That’s not hide and bide. If you’re sitting across the strait in Taiwan, you’re not seeing a lot of hiding and biding. 41:58: What are China’s future intentions on a grand strategic scale, and how do policymakers in the West feel about it? Sulmaan explains his view: “It says something about the way we typically think about China and other countries — that that kind of alarmism gains traction. There’s that old Atticus Finch line about walking around in someone else’s shoes and seeing how they feel, and I think much of the American foreign policy establishment is pretty bad at that. If the Chinese are doing something that we don’t like, it’s undemocratic or tyrannical. If the Russians are doing something we don’t like, ditto. If you’re not doing it our way, there’s something fundamentally wrong with you.” Recommendations: Jeremy: Nathan Hale — cartoonist, author, and illustrator of graphic novels for children. Sulmaan: Watership Down, by Richard Adams. A useful vessel for understanding China and a source of grand strategic wisdom. Kaiser: Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America, by Vegas Tenold, and Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, by Kathleen Belew.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.

On this week's show, recorded live in New York on April 3, Kaiser and Jeremy have a wide-ranging chat with former New York Times China correspondent Howard French, now a professor at Columbia University's School of Journalism. We talk about his book Everything Under the Heavens and China's ambitions and anxieties in the world today. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 7:31: How do Chinese people react to Western reporting about China? Howard has noticed a shift in his students from the People’s Republic of China and suggests, “Because of the changing climate in China, [Chinese students] have a greater appreciation of some of the liberties that go into being able to express criticism about China or being able to think off the beaten path about China.” 23:48: The three discuss Howard’s book, Everything Under The Heavens, and some of the themes in it. Howard: “So the argument that runs through the book is that, if not DNA, then these two realities of [China’s] longevity and continuity on the one hand, and size on the other hand, have created habits of language and habits of mind and patterns of diplomacy that are fairly consistent, but we can see them repeating themselves in variations over a very, very long period of time.” 32:56: Is China a revisionist power or a status quo power? Before Jeremy can finish asking this question, Howard replies, “It’s both.” Howard explains how this could be possible: “There is an insistent notion in China that I admire. I don’t think it’s always to China’s benefit, but I admire the instinct, if instinct is the right world. ‘For every problem we should find a Chinese way to answer it.’ And so, if international relations can be construed as a problem…then finding a Chinese way alongside of accepting incumbent arrangements is a reflex that one is likely to continue to see in China.” 44:46: The relationship between the United States and China appears to have arrived at a critical juncture. In response to Kaiser’s request to provide a prognosis for U.S.-China relations, Howard contests that “most of the liability of the present moment is actually bound up in the present moment.” He continues, “There will be consequences to pay even if Trump goes [in 2020]…and that the United States, I think, no matter what happens in the succession year after Trump, in the best of scenarios, will still have surrendered some not inconsiderable part of its prestige and power in the world.” Recommendations: Jeremy: The Idle Parent: Why Laid-Back Parents Raise Happier and Healthy Kids, by Tom Hodgkinson, a case for laissez-faire parenting. Howard: Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order, by J.C. Sharman, and River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom, by Walter Johnson. Kaiser: An article in the London Review of Books, Is this the end of the American century?, by Adam Tooze.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 chat with Wendy Cutler, vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, about a new paper she has authored that calls for coordination between the U.S. and other countries in managing issues related to China trade. She makes the case for working through the WTO and other multilateral organizations, and explains why China is more apt to respond more positively to multilateral over bi- or unilateral approaches. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 4:08: American and Chinese economic advisers Robert Lighthizer and Liu He are said to be inching toward finalizing an agreement on bilateral trade in the early weeks of May. To begin, Wendy offers some insight into what developments could come: “I think we’re going to see a pretty robust agreement between the United States and China. It’ll have up to 150 pages of commitments, including market access commitments, purchasing commitments, structural reform commitments, as well as an enforcement mechanism to make sure China lives up to its obligations under the commitments.” 16:11: Wendy suggests that the building of new coalitions may be necessary, given the difficulty in gathering the 164 votes from each World Trade Organization member country needed for a formal agreement, and urges openness on collaboration on different issues with a wider range of partners. “What we’re advocating is that the United States doesn’t get fixated on working with the same countries on certain issues… If the United States has concerns, chances are other countries have concerns, too. So reach out to other countries and see if, at a minimum, you can share information, and maybe, at a maximum, coordinate responses or even send joint representations to China on what needs to be changed. There’s a range of options.” 25:28: What of investment restrictions on Chinese companies in the United States? Wendy elaborates on her suggested strategy: “We suggest that the United States work and coordinate with other countries to see what they’re doing in this area. Because, for the United States, we don’t want to see a situation where we put so many restrictions on Chinese access to our market, and then China just turns elsewhere. Our measures are then less effective.” 29:41: Could this approach lead to a less antagonistic relationship with China, at least regarding trade? Wendy explains: “My hope is that with a U.S.-China trade agreement in the offing, I think, once again, we’re in the endgame and we’ll see a trade agreement soon. We’ll see, at least on the trade front, a reduction in tensions in this area and hopefully this reduction will maybe spread to other areas. I do think we’re in a new world now — that there’s going to be tensions between the United States and China in all of these areas — but I’m hopeful that through the close contacts our negotiators have forged as a result of the U.S.-China trade talks, that this could help deescalate a lot of tensions as they are emerging…” Recommendations: Jeremy: A free bird identification app called Merlin Bird ID, produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Wendy: Finding a few songs to help the Chinese and U.S. negotiators to get through the highs and lows of international trade talks. Kaiser: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, by John Carreyrou.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, China-watching wunderkind Julian Gewirtz joins Kaiser and Jeremy to chat about his recent paper on the American futurist Alvin Toffler (author of Future Shock and The Third Wave), who found a surprisingly receptive audience in the China of the early 1980s. His ideas on the role of technology in modernization were widely embraced by leaders of China's reform movement — including both Dèng Xiǎopíng 邓小平 and his right-hand man, Zhào Zǐyáng 赵紫阳. Julian describes how Toffler came to the attention of the reformers, and discusses the lasting impact of his influence. 11:51: As the Cultural Revolution ended, Chinese officials and intellectuals began to look for ideas that could breathe new life into the Chinese intelligentsia and bureaucracy. A translator named Dǒng Lèshān 董乐山 went to the United States, repeatedly came across The Third Wave, and subsequently invited Toffler to come to China. And so he did, with many copies of his book. One thing led to another, and Toffler’s work came under the gaze of the State Council and Zhao Ziyang himself. Jeremy reflects, “This is, in some ways, a story of China for foreigners in the 1980s and 1990s — you could have any shtick if you were a hustler. You could arrive in Beijing with your books and hand them out. The next thing, the Politburo is listening to you. Those days are long gone.” 15:35: In writing his first book, which focused extensively on economists, Julian came across Alvin Toffler’s name repeatedly. Upon delving further into research for his paper on Toffler, he got a bit more than he expected: “To be totally frank, I did not expect, when I started looking into it, that I would end up finding a story, from the Chinese perspective, of very significant interest that was more than just an intellectual craze or fad, but that really connected to fundamental questions about technology policy, how the Chinese state should support new technologies, and in a sense, the future that the Chinese leadership was envisioning for China itself.” 22:31: Technology policy, and mastering the implementation of such policy, has been a focus for Chinese leadership stretching to the beginning of reform and opening. Julian explains the importance of science and technology policy as China opened to the world: “We see a global information technology revolution occurring, and worry among Chinese leaders that, just as they’re opening to the world, just as China is beginning its process of catching up, maybe they’ll be left behind again. And the impetus to try to get ahead of the information technology revolution, which is one of the central goals that Deng and Zhao work on together, is, I think, a crucial aspect of the 1980s that we haven’t really understood so well thus far.” 32:21: Science and technology are venerated in China in a way that draws a stark contrast with the United States. “The nerds are the jocks in high school,” says Jeremy, to which Kaiser remarks, “Exactly. But they don’t ride by in the Camaro and shout, ‘Jock!’” Julian explains what this means on a broader scale: “We need to begin by looking at [Chinese technology] on its own terms, before we import our own ideas onto it. The reason that studying the transnational flow of ideas, someone like Toffler becoming big in China — the reason that can be so revealing, I think, is that it allows us to accentuate dimensions that differ or are unusual, or are surprising to observers from outside, again centering on that Chinese perspective, the Chinese leadership’s view of these things, and how certain ideas play there in a different way than how they play in the United States.” Recommendations: Jeremy: A 2006 People’s Daily interview with Alvin Toffler, who, contrary to popular belief, has some interesting ideas. Julian: Poems by W. S. Merwin, “The Hydra” in particular, and Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China, by Xiaolu Guo. Kaiser: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, by Steven Pinker, and “The Two Cultures,” an essay by C. P. Snow.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.

China's most famous Canadian, Mark Rowswell, became famous — or at least "feimerse" — after appearing in the Spring Festival Gala on CCTV in 1990. In recent years, he's pioneered a hybrid between the xiangsheng (相声 xiàngsheng; crosstalk) for which he's known and Western-style stand-up comedy. Mark joined Anthony Tao and David Moser at the storied Bookworm on the final night of the Bookworm Literary Festival on March 30 to talk about the Chinese language, comedy, and the difficulties of Chinese soft power. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 11:51: Learning Chinese is difficult — however, the specific types of difficulties that individuals are presented with often vary widely. Ethnically Chinese people are often held to a higher linguistic standard than their Caucasian counterparts, whereas foreigners who speak Chinese have become less of a rarity — and consequently less professionally valuable — in recent years. Mark explains: “I’ve had friends say, ‘You know the Chinese respect the ugly American. They don’t respect the sensitive, understanding Chinese-speaking foreigner. They like foreigners to be foreign.’” 29:22: Dīng Guǎngquán 丁广泉, a late titan of the Chinese comedy world, was one of Mark and David’s mentors. Non-judgmental and highly attentive to his disciples’ strong and weak points (he once wrote a scene describing David as muddle-headed and forgetful), he created a platform for many foreigners to enter the world of performance in Chinese. Mark states: “For us, it was very much a partnership, because he wasn’t all that well known in China, either. I had the name, the image, the fame that brought these opportunities to perform, but he was the guy who knew how to do it. I wouldn’t know how to do this by myself. That had a huge impact on me.” 32:43: “Your Chinese is so good!” A woman had overheard Mark telling Anthony the name of a restaurant in Chinese and promptly complimented him. According to Mark, the reactions he gets when speaking Chinese with shopkeepers or taxi drivers hasn’t changed much in 20 years, pushing back on the idea that the novelty of foreigners speaking Chinese has faded. David quips, “What does that tell you? That Chinese is very hard to learn.” “Well,” Mark contests, “we still do a bad job of it.” 44:04: Is the difficulty of the Chinese language a hindrance on China’s ability to export soft power? Mark explains: “First of all, the Chinese state sort of organizes everything so it has to be an official program. And secondly, Chinese people, I think, just tend to tense up when they sense that they’re dealing with foreigners — they have to be careful about what they say, and they’re a ‘representative of China,’ you know, they have this huge emotional burden that they bring to it. I think that’s the main problem China has with soft power: They don’t let their people express that power.” Recommendations: David: Recommends investigating books by Earnshaw Books, a Hong Kong–based publishing house, founded by Graham Earnshaw. Graham’s music can also be found online on his Bandcamp page. Mark: Thirteen Invitations (十三邀 shísān yāo), by Xǔ Zhīyuǎn 许知远, a video series that can be found on Tencent Video here. Anthony: The website What’s on Weibo, the Beijing Invitational Craft Beer Festival, hosted by Great Leap, and The Last Tribe on Earth, by Liane Halton and Anthony Tao.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.

Is the ongoing anti-corruption drive a sincere effort to root out official wrongdoing? Or is it a political purge of the enemies of Xí Jìnpíng 习近平? These questions have been hotly debated since the outset of the campaign in 2013. Now Peter Lorentzen of the University of San Francisco and Xi Lu of the National University of Singapore have harnessed data to examine the anti-corruption drive in the hopes of settling the question. Kaiser sat down with Peter on the sidelines of the recent Association for Asian Studies Conference to talk about the findings in their paper, “Personal Ties, Meritocracy, and China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign.” What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 22:57: Of the many officials that have been purged since 2012, “three big tigers” in particular stand out: Sū Róng 苏荣, Líng Jìhuà 令计划, and Zhōu Yǒngkāng 周永康. Of the provinces Xi Lu and Peter analyzed, economic performance was a large contributing factor for official promotion except for Jiangxi, Shanxi, and Sichuan. Here, Peter provides background on these three officials, their downfall, and the “tiger territories” they previously oversaw. 30:34: In 2012, Bó Xīlái 薄熙来 was considered one of the main contenders to challenge Xi Jinping’s ascent to power. His association with the murder of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, reportedly ordered by his wife, brought a swift end to his political success. However, Peter was surprised by what he found regarding his political network in the aftermath: “If you rank people using the Google PageRank algorithm, you find Bo Xilai was below 20th. What that means, in practice, is that in our data there were not many people reported as being his cronies who were subordinate to him compared to a lot of other people.” 32:42: What does the inability of Politburo Standing Committee members to protect their personal networks say about the current political climate in China? Peter: “Even when you clump all other six Politburo [Standing Committee] members together, we didn’t see a sort of protective effect. Their associates, people we believed to be connected with them, were just as likely to go down as anyone else. So the question is: Why were they not able to protect their people?... This is not something we can observe directly in our data, but my sense is that it does show the demise of the collective leadership, first-among-equals approach.” 39:26: How many people have been subject to the corruption crackdown? Peter studied those who were investigated, whose names were published in reports by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection by 2015. “We’re looking at the first wave of the crackdown, but that was just a thousand people [whose names we could get]. I was looking at some estimates last night, and I think people are saying that the total number as of the end of last year was 20,000 to 30,000 people overall. And you know, they’re not all people who looked wrong at Xi Jinping some day. So it’s pretty clear that he’s got to have some other way of deciding who goes down.” Recommendations: Peter: Two sitcoms, Speechless (available on ABC) and Kim’s Convenience (available on Netflix). Kaiser: Two playlists on Spotify, “Instrumental Madness” and “Got Djent?”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.

Kaiser sat down with Nury Turkel, chairman and founder of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, at the recent Association for Asian Studies conference in Denver for an impromptu catch-up on the current crisis in Xinjiang. Nury last appeared on the Sinica Podcast half a year ago. They discussed the policy options available to the U.S. as well as the difficulties of trying to get through to Chinese elites and ordinary Chinese people alike. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 2:31: The conversation begins with a recap of vote counts and support behind bipartisan bills that are currently working through the U.S. Congress: the Uighur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response (UIGHUR Act) and the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act. Nury says that there could be more news on these bills in the coming months: “We were told that there’s a chance that [the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act] will be finalized…sometime this summer.” 6:44: Nury calls for a larger international coalition to decry the horrors in Xinjiang, and highlight the shadow that Uyghur internment will cast on the longer history of China, stating, “In the end, we want two things. One, we want the camps to be shut down. It’s an embarrassment to the Chinese people, even in their history. It needs to be shut down. And, two, we want to be able to restore the Uyghur people’s basic dignity. Give them their dignity and respect back.” 17:48: After reporting emerged on the supposed death of famed Uyghur musician Abdurehim Heyit, Beijing pushed back with a dubious “proof of life” video. This has resulted in a social media movement to raise awareness about the horrors being committed in Xinjiang, #MeTooUyghur. Nury comments: “So, this #MeTooUyghur movement is building up still. What is amazing about this is that a lot of Uyghurs who were not comfortable sharing their stories are coming out. So, the more people show up and come out telling their stories, the more people know about it. Eventually, it will result in some tangible action.” 27:12: The Uyghurs’ ongoing internment has taken a heavy toll on them. Nury explains: “The Uyghur communities around the world [are] going through a really tough time. Crippling anxiety, a sense of guilt, hopelessness…basically [making] the Uyghurs feel disconnected from their family members. Just basic things, such as calling your parents to say, ‘How are you?’ Just imagine that you hear your mother died in a concentration camp through Radio Free Asia. Just imagine that you recognize your children in the Chinese government propaganda material as a happy child…just imagine that you manage to go to your homeland and you are not able to see your sister because your iris was not scanned or [not] part of the government data. Just imagine that you walk out and try to go to your parents’ cemetery and the Chinese government prevents you because of your religion.” 39:58: How can individuals reach out and help sympathetic Han Chinese who are in China and willing to make a stand for the Uyghurs in Xinjiang? Nury underlines the high stakes involved, not only for the Uyghurs, but for all of China: “At least recognizing that what the Chinese government is doing in the 21st century, criminalizing the entire population [of Uyghurs] collectively, is not good for Chinese civilization.”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 live Sinica Podcast recorded in New York on March 6 features Samm Sacks, Cybersecurity Policy and China Digital Economy Fellow at New America. She and Kaiser Kuo discuss the many facets of U.S.-China technology integration and competition, touching on topics such as data security, artificial intelligence, and how to build “a small yard with a high fence.” What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 11:04: Decoupling is a theme that has defined one of the more extreme potential outcomes of the fraying U.S.-China relationship. Are these conversations prevalent outside of Washington? What about the Silicon Valley tech community? Samm addresses these questions here, among others: “The reality is when we think about technology development, whether it’s joint research, supply chains, collaboration of sciences — these things don’t really map nicely onto political borders. And these are really diffuse networks that, when you try to decouple [them], there’s just a disconnect here.” 21:13:What is the relationship between technology companies and the Communist Party? What impact does China’s Cybersecurity and National Intelligence Law have on the companies’ supposed obligations to cooperate with authorities on sharing private data? When two passengers using Didi, a popular ride-share service in China, were killed, the company cooperated reluctantly, resulting in a bizarre legal limbo. Samm explains: “Chinese legal scholars were saying, wait a second, if Didi is to fall in line on this data-sharing agreement, that’s a violation of China’s Cybersecurity Law, because the Cybersecurity Law has a framework around the conditions where data is collected and shared. So again I think there’s a lot more churn than people understand.” 27:46: What is important data? China’s Cybersecurity Law has outlined broad data localization requirements. Does the government have the ability (or capability) to review the huge amounts of data going in and out of the country? Samm points out: “One of the outcomes I would look for if we were to see the so-called structural issues on the tech side, one would be is the Chinese government going to agree to allow more kinds of commercial data out of the country without these arduous security audits?” 34:41: Is China deliberately exporting its model of censorship to governments and countries throughout the world? What of the future of domestic surveillance in China? Who is discussing the ethical and legal implications of artificial intelligence being brought into everyday life and society, and where? Samm attended a Track 2 dialogue between Berkeley Law and Beijing University Law and discusses the conversations in the academic world regarding algorithmic bias, and contesting decisions made by artificial intelligence here. 40:58: Samm elaborates on the concept of “small yard and high fence.” What are some actionable items in the technological tussle unfolding between Washington and Beijing? She provides her guiding principle: “Having a constructive bilateral trade and investment relationship with China, particularly with technology, is in the interest of the United States. And we cannot take an approach that is going to use blanket bans and discrimination based on national origin. We need to use tools like law enforcement as the scalpel they were intended to be because of the integration of our two systems. Otherwise, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot.” Recommendations: Kaiser: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James C. Scott. Samm: Catastrophe, a British sitcom available on 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 the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by Eric Olander, host of the China in Africa Podcast from the China Africa Project, and by Anzetse Were, a developmental economist based in Nairobi. They explore questions related to Kenyan debt and development, as well as Sino-American competition in East Africa. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 10:33: When did China begin to put concerted diplomatic effort into relations with African countries? What were the optics of China’s push into the African continent? Anzetse highlights three examples that led to China’s success in dealing with businesses and governments: “[Chinese diplomats] are quite humble in their articulation, certainly to African people, saying, ‘While this has been the Chinese experience, we don’t know what you want, what you can learn and what you don’t want to learn.’ So they’re not prescriptive. But of course the biggest thing that African governments like is that they don’t lecture about anything.” 19:05: Is China leading African countries into “debt traps”? What are the primary causes for concern regarding the debts of African governments, and the wider international community? Anzetse explains that it’s a confluence of factors, including transparency issues and the effects of kindling trade relationships with new partners: “There is concern in the global north, particularly Europe and North America, as to reexposure in African governments to debt…and their concern is that they’re doing it with a party that the world does not really understand in terms of how it deals with debt defaults and how it deals with repayments owed. I think that Europe and North America were much more comfortable when debt owed was in their hands, obviously because they had [control], but I think because they had a common understanding on how this would be addressed. They do not know how the Chinese are going to do this.” 42:21: America is restructuring the way it provides aid to the rest of the world through the International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) and the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development Act (BUILD Act), in an attempt to compete with China in the developing world. How effective is this restructuring? Eric provides some insight: “It’s not challenging China at all. It’s not intended to challenge China. Instead, they actually complement each other very, very well. So, a country like Kenya can turn to China for infrastructure and massive loans from the Chinese for a public sector type of development. But then, IDFC and the U.S. come in to fund American business and Kenyan business that can’t get funding anywhere else.” 49:36: What effect is the Belt and Road Initiative having in Africa? What about the African countries that are excluded from the plans, as China has made inroads, for the most part, on Africa’s eastern seaboard? Anzetse states: “I think the Chinese began to understand, ‘We do not want to start dividing African sentiments on China, we’re going to find a way to make sure all the regions in Africa are represented in this Belt and Road Initiative. Whether it will be practical is not clear.” Recommendations: Jeremy: I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation and In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo, both by Michela Wrong. Eric: Competing against Chinese loans, U.S. companies face long odds in Africa, an article in the New York Times by Ed Wong. Anzetse: Rhinocéros, by Eugène Ionesco. Kaiser: Lake Success: A Novel, by Gary Shteyngart.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’s Sinica was recorded at UPenn’s Center for Study on Contemporary China. Jeremy and Kaiser speak with three prominent scholars on China: Sheena Greitens, associate professor of political science at the University of Missouri, Rory Truex, assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, and Neysun Mahboubi, research scholar at the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania. The group tackles a topic that has long beleaguered China-watching circles: self-censorship. In addition, it focuses on a paper that Sheena and Rory published last summer, Repressive Experiences among China Scholars: New Evidence from Survey Data. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 22:41: Sheena describes the categories in which she and Rory organized “repressive experiences” in China, the center of their research, comprising 13 types of repression divided into three buckets: “The three broad categories that we looked at were restrictions on access to China itself, restriction on access to materials once you’re in China doing research, and monitoring and surveillance of that research by authorities in China.” According to their research, 20-25 percent of those interviewed had difficulty accessing archived materials, and 10 percent of visiting China scholars had been “invited” by authorities to speak with them and explain their research. When Chinese colleagues and interlocutors at host institutions are included in the sample, the figure jumps to 15 percent. 29:45: Rory’s hypothesis going into this project was that there would be a spike in repressive experiences and research after Xi Jinping’s ascent to power in 2012. Perceptions certainly trend in that direction. However, data from their research didn’t reveal major temporal trends related to these repressive experiences, with one caveat: “I talk to people who do a lot of fieldwork, and they say it’s actually much harder even to have interviews at all anymore. The one thing where there was a temporal trend was access to archives. If you talk to historians, they’ll talk a lot about how the archives are being sanitized, and projects, books, and dissertations that were feasible 10 or 15 years ago are no longer feasible today.” 48:05: What exactly is self-censorship? Neysun, Sheena, and Rory all take slightly differing views on what characterizes it. Rory discusses the calculus behind self-censorship, and identifies external stimuli that may have an impact on research and published materials in the United States: “We might be at the opposite [point of the problem], where the professional incentives [of researching contentious topics], plus the political environment in the United States are such that saying anything positive, or even neutral about the Communist Party is difficult to do, and difficult to publish.” 1:08:59: What role do China-watchers play in the larger conversation that, in the modern era, seems to be undergoing constant recalibration? What of the dichotomy among China-watchers, à la hawks versus doves? Here, Neysun, Sheena, and Rory all offer insight into these questions and suggestions on the way forward. Recommendations: Jeremy: Two jazz albums, Live at the Pershing, by Ahmad Jamal, a live recording from 1958, and Money Jungle, a studio album by Duke Ellington. Neysun: Evening Chats in Beijing: Probing China’s Predicament, by Perry Link. Sheena: Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westwood, and Harry and the Terrible Whatzit, by Dick Gackenbach. Rory: The website www.chinachange.org, a website that provides reports, commentary, and analysis on human rights in China. Kaiser: Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, by Sulmaan Wasif Khan.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.