Sinica Podcast

Kai-Fu Lee, a prominent figure in Chinese tech, discusses artificial intelligence (AI) in China. Topics covered include Google's exit from China, trends in China (consumer upgrades, digital wallets, online education, enterprise software), investments in shows, using technology for social good, China's advantages in AI (larger user base, engineering professionals, permissiveness in data usage), the impact of AI on liberal arts education, and recommendations for Atlantic Magazine, documentary, movie, and Reuters piece.

ChiaChieh Tang 唐家婕, who also goes by Jane, is a Taiwanese reporter who works as the U.S. bureau chief for Sina News (新浪新闻 xīnlàng xīnwén) in Washington, D.C. She is one of a few members of the mainland Chinese media who regularly attend the White House’s daily press briefings. In this podcast, Jeremy and Kaiser ask about her experiences attending the infamous Sean Spicer press sessions, being a Taiwanese person working for a mainland media company, and her observations of Chinese reactions to the Trump administration. Jane gives insight into how Chinese media coverage of Trump changed after he took office, what it was like to interview the president’s in-house China basher Peter Navarro, and that time she hopped in a cab with a pair of “Bernie bros.” Recommendations: Jeremy: The Málà Project (麻辣计划 málà jìhuà), a restaurant in New York that serves wonderfully spicy Sichuanese “dry pot” dishes. Also, a (sadly now defunct) Twitter account called burnedyourtweet, which, while active, posted a video of a robot printing out and burning every one of Donald Trump’s tweets. Jane: Granny and the Boys, a band in Washington, D.C., that frequently performs at the Showtime dive bar in the Shaw district. Its style of funk fusion is no less remarkable than the fact that the band is made up of an 84-year-old grandma and four middle-aged men. Click here to read about and listen to the band on NPR (true to grandma form, this band rolls without a website of its own). Kaiser: The Handmaid’s Tale, an updated but faithful TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s classic book about a totalitarian theocracy in America. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Joseph Nye, Jr., first used the phrase soft power in 1990 in his book Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, China did not factor much into his calculus of world order: It had relatively little military and economic power, and none of the softer “persuasive” or “attractive” abilities that Nye saw as key features of the global domination of the United States. Today, we live in a different world, and though China is achieving remarkable military might and economic dominance, Nye would argue that China has only made stumbling progress in becoming a more attractive brand to most other nations. What are the continuing roadblocks to China’s progress in building soft power? How is Donald Trump affecting the balance of such power between the U.S. and China? Are both countries headed toward an inevitable great power conflict — also known as the Thucydides Trap — in which an established power’s fear of a rising power escalates toward war? And has the meaning of the term soft power changed in the last 25 years, between 1990 and 2015, when Nye published his most recent book, Is the American Century Over? Jeremy and Kaiser spoke with Nye, a University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University, at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was formerly the dean. Recommendations: Jeremy: “Imagining Re-Engineered Muslims in Northwest China,” a largely visual article by Darren Byler on Chinese propaganda about Muslims in Xinjiang Province. Joe: Is the American Century Over?, his most recent book, which contains a chapter that specifically compares the U.S. and China in soft power. Plus, an upcoming (planned for a mid-September 2017 release) Ken Burns film on the Vietnam War, which should be of interest to anyone interested in Asia, the U.S., or history in general. Kaiser: The collection of Renaissance oil paintings at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charlene Barshefsky was a name you couldn’t avoid if you were in Beijing in the late 1990s. As the United States trade representative from 1997 to 2001, she led the American team that negotiated China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). On December 11, 2001, Ambassador Barshefsky’s efforts paid off, and, as a new member of the body that sets global rules for trade, China began the deep integration into the world economy that we take for granted today. Kaiser and Jeremy recorded this interview with Ambassador Barshefsky at her offices at the law firm WilmerHale in Washington, D.C., where she is the chair of international trade. She recounted stories about the WTO negotiations, and about her relationship with Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, who was her Chinese counterpart in negotiations (see SupChina’s video on Zhu). We asked her how the hopes and expectations behind China’s WTO accession look in retrospect, and how she sees China’s role in global trade in the second decade of the 21st century. We think you’ll agree that her answers provide a fascinating glimpse into one of the most significant global economic deals in recent history. Recommendations: Jeremy: A series on the history, politics, and culture of cities in China, edited by Geremie R. Barmé: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Hangzhou and West Lake. Charlene: The classic tale of Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. Kaiser: Learning (or relearning) Spanish, especially via the YouTube channel Aprender Idiomas y Cultura General con Rodrigo. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

China-watching isn’t what it used to be. Not too long ago, the field of international China studies was dominated by a few male Westerners with an encyclopedic knowledge of China, but with surprisingly little experience living in the country and speaking Chinese. Today, China-watching is different: The old “China hands” are still around and remain authoritative, but an increased number of younger travelers in a much more open China, people with specialized academic backgrounds and advanced language skills, and women — see last week’s Sinica Podcast on female China expertise — are changing the face of this field. Bill Bishop is among the most recognizable China-watchers in the business. His long-running Sinocism newsletter is an essential resource for serious followers of China policy, and he is regularly quoted in a variety of major news outlets reporting on China. Kaiser and Bill sat down at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on April 6 to record this podcast and discuss how China-watching has changed over the years. And in a reflection of Bill’s point that the media’s conventional wisdom on China is usually wrong, the summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago (occurring during the recording of this podcast) was exactly as Bill predicted: “Bland.” Recommendations: Bill: In the Name of the People (人民的名义 rénmín de míngyì), the big-budget anti-corruption propaganda thriller. And The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, by Ian Johnson. Kaiser: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, a provocative and original book by Yuval Noah Harari.   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

From business to literature to politics, there is a huge pool of female expertise on China. But you wouldn’t know it if you examined the names of people who are quoted in the media and invited to China-themed panel discussions: They are mostly men. This is a problem that two Beijing-based journalists aim to solve. Joanna Chiu of AFP and Lucy Hornby of the Financial Times created and maintain an open, user-contributed list called “Female Experts on Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland China and Taiwan.” They began by providing their own contacts, then promoted the document to various email groups and to Twitter. The list “blew up” early this year and now contains nearly 200 names and contact details of female China experts on every major subject area, based all around the world. With such a roster willing to be called up, the list eliminates many common excuses for the underrepresentation of women in the field. In this episode, Joanna and Lucy speak with Jeremy and Kaiser about the realities and biases in the field, the excuses and corresponding solutions for gender underrepresentation, and how the “women’s list” came about. Longtime listeners will remember Lucy from a previous Sinica episode discussing her story on China’s last surviving “comfort women,” enslaved by the Japanese military in World War II. You can follow Lucy on Twitter at @hornbylucy, and find Joanna on Twitter at @joannachiu. Recommendations: Jeremy: Witness to Revolution, a film by Lucy Ostrander about author and labor activist Anna Louise Strong (1885–1970), who spent decades in China and the Soviet Union, getting to know Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Joseph Stalin, and writing about their pursuit of communism. Lucy: All the President’s Men, the first-person account of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they reported on the Nixon administration’s Watergate scandal. Joanna: The Supreme People’s Court Monitor, a project of Susan Finder, for those who follow Chinese law, and the work of Jessica Valenti, a feminist book author and columnist for the Guardian. Kaiser: The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, a story about a sleeper agent from Vietnam who moves to the U.S. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a career U.S. foreign service officer and the acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the U.S. State Department, Susan Thornton has had a hand in the China policy of three successive American administrations. She was stationed in China for the years 2000-2007, and since then has held leadership positions in Washington connected to U.S.-China relations. Before 2000, she specialized in and was stationed in post-Soviet states, including Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. She is an excellent interpreter of how U.S.-China relations have developed in the 21st century, and a key player in current U.S.-China policy. In this podcast: What really happened at Mar-a-Lago? Was the Trump team prepared? Was the timing of the Syria strike intentional? How does the U.S. administration plan to press China on North Korea, and will it continue to criticize China on human rights? This podcast was recorded live on April 12 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., with the help of that university’s chapter of Global China Connection. Recommendations: Jeremy: “Logical Thinking” (逻辑思维 luóji sīwéi), a popular channel on WeChat that broadcasts a one-minute recording on an issue of society in mainland China every day. Search for “逻辑思维” on WeChat. Susan: The Immobile Empire, by Alain Peyrefitte, a book on Lord George Macartney’s famous trip to visit the Qianlong Emperor in 1793 and cross-cultural perceptions between the British and Chinese empires. Kaiser: Chinese History: A New Manual, by Endymion Wilkinson. The invaluable tome covering China from many different angles is often described as “magisterial.” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Virginia A. Kamsky, also known as Ginny, is one of the leading foreign businesspeople in China and a legend of the U.S.-China commercial relationship. She first went to China in 1978 with what was then the Chase Manhattan Bank, before the country began “reform and opening up” and when very few foreigners visited. Ginny founded Kamsky Associates, Inc., in 1980, one of the first U.S. companies to be granted a business license in China. As a strategic advisory firm, Kamsky works with a wide array of clients ranging from automobile, chemical, finance, media, and more. Unlike some foreign business people but like many of the most successful business leaders in China, she has a background in Chinese language and culture, having learned it since she was ten years old. On the podcast, she shares some of her experiences getting to know some of the more notable politicians, executives, and entrepreneurs working in China, and the opportunities and pitfalls of doing business there as a woman and as a foreigner. Ginny will also be featured next month — on May 18, 2017 — as a speaker on the CEO / Leaders panel of the SupChina Women and China Conference in New York. Recommendations: Jeremy: 5 Calls, a smartphone app designed for the American “resistance” to Donald Trump, which gives you the numbers of five elected representatives or government offices in the U.S. to contact every day based on your location. Ginny: A video of Chinese ballroom dancing from 1929, plus the new book of Brookings scholar Cheng Li, Chinese Politics in the Xi Jinping Era: Reassessing Collective Leadership. Kaiser: Crazy Aaron Thinking Putty, a fun toy his son discovered and that Kaiser has found quite useful as a sort of stress ball. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is nationalism really rising in China? How does it differ from patriotism? What is “Eurasianism” and how does Russia use that concept? How much of China’s nationalism is rooted in the “century of humiliation” that the country suffered at the hands of Western countries and Japan between 1839 and 1949? Jeremy and Kaiser spoke with two eminent scholars of nationalism in Russia and China to find out. Charles Clover is a correspondent with the Financial Times based in Beijing, and author of Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia's New Nationalism. Jude Blanchette is a scholar currently writing a book on neo-Maoists in China, who, he explains, have their own interpretation of Chinese nationalism. Jude was a guest on a previous episode of the Sinica Podcast dedicated to the subject of neo-Maoists. Recommendations: Jeremy: “The Age of Total Lies,” a translation of an essay written by Vesna Pešić, a Serbian opposition politician and human rights activist. Jude: The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China, published in 1993 by Susan Shirk. Charles: Easternization: Asia's Rise and America's Decline From Obama to Trump and Beyond, by Gideon Rachman. Kaiser: Age of Anger: A History of the Present, by Pankaj Mishra, and the 1987 film Repentance, a view into life under Stalinism by Georgian filmmaker Tengiz Abuladze.   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

16+1, a new Chinese initiative, takes its name from 16 countries of Central and Eastern Europe plus China. It held a summit in November 2016 attended by Premier Li Keqiang and prime ministers or deputy prime ministers from the other member states. Earlier, President Xi Jinping had visited three countries in the region — Serbia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. What’s it all for? How have China’s overtures been received by the governments of Central and Eastern Europe? Many of them — like those of Poland and the Czech Republic — had, until recently, real difficulties in their relations with China. And how have the two powers flanking Central and Eastern Europe — Russia to the east and the EU to the west — reacted to China’s creation of 16+1? For answers to these questions and many more, Kaiser and Jeremy talked to Martin Hála, a China scholar who heads a project called AcaMedia, which is based in his native Prague. Recommendations: Jeremy: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera. Martin: Black Wind, White Snow, by Charles Clover, Eurasian integration: Caught between Russia and China, by the European Council on Foreign Relations. Kaiser: The “relative calculator” app on WeChat, which calculates the correct Chinese term for family relations. Search for 亲戚计算器 (qīnqi jìsuànqì) on WeChat.   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.