Peking Hotel with Liu He

What’s it like for a foreigner to perform Xiangsheng—China’s traditional crosstalk comedy—on the biggest stage in the Sinophone world, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala?

In 1999, David Moser did just that. Now an Associate Professor at Beijing Capital Normal University, David had already spent a decade in China by then, studying Xiangsheng under Master Ding Guangquan, translating books, and helping seed China’s underground jazz scene.Yet, despite his intimidating list of talents, when you meet him, you can’t help but call him ‘Lao Mo’ (老莫). He’s a jolly, funny, dynamic friend to spend time with. I will say no more than that this is the most entertaining chat I’ve done for Peking Hotel. I hope you feel the same too.

For quick navigation to the specific sections:

* What is it like to perform Xiangsheng in front of a billion Chinese people?

* A musician wanders into the Sinophone world through tongue-twisters and translation

* Translating one of the first books on AI in China with half-baked Chinese

* When Ancient Greek meets Ancient Chinese

* Apprenticing under Ding Guangquan, a Xinagsheng Master

Music: High Rollin, Stefano Mastronardi, Artlist Original Music

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About Peking Hotel

The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China experts living in the U.S. Their stories are a reminder of what China used to be and what it is capable of becoming.

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Prof. Judith Shapiro reflects on how the environment used to be a cause for which Chinese civil society was allowed to fight, until that too became sensitive.Host: Liu He

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About Peking Hotel

The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China experts living in the U.S. Their stories are a reminder of what China used to be and what it is capable of becoming.

Before her career switch to researching environmental politics, Prof. Judith Shapiro spent a whirlwind decade teaching, writing, and living in and about China as it awakened from the Mao era.

Democracy scholar Larry Diamond discusses why democratisation in China and Hong Kong failed, and how activists can keep the global movement against autocracy going as the U.S. turns isolationist.

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About us

The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China experts living in the U.S. Their stories are a reminder of what China used to be and what it is capable of becoming.

For quick navigation:

China’s qiqong fever

Chasing the Falun Gong beat in Beijing and around China

Winning the Pulitzer

Recommended Readings:

David Ownby, 1996, Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China, Standford Universit

Ian Johnson, 2004, Wild Grass, Pantheon

David A. Palmer, 2007, Qigong Fever, Columbia University Press

David Ownby, 2008, Falun Gong and the Future of China, Oxford University Press

Ian Johnson, 2017, Souls of China, Knopf Doubleday

Ian Johnson, 2023, Sparks, Oxford University Press

About us

The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China experts living in the U.S. Their stories are a reminder of what China used to be and what it is capable of becoming.

We also have a Chinese-language Substack. We hope to publish more conversations like this one, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading Peking Hotel! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Click here for Lunar New Year community livestreaming signup. 6pm Pacific Time, Jan 29th

I never deliberately timed this piece with the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, yet now that we have stumbled upon this occasion, it also seems fitting. For to answer the question “what will Trump do about China?” it is necessary to revisit and review the recent history of U.S.-China relations, the dynamics of both American and Chinese domestic politics, and the macro forces shaping the political environment. Luckily, we are gifted with another piece of oral history from our honorable guest, Prof. Susan Shirk of UC San Diego.

Followers of this Substack will find her a familiar figure, for we have so far published two pieces of her oral history (part one and part two). For new readers, I will introduce Prof. Shirk again: She is a research professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, director-emeritus of the 21st Century China Center, and director-emeritus of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). She is one of the West’s foremost thinkers on Chinese elite politics and political institutions, who, having first travelled to China in the early ‘70s, has witnessed the country from the Mao to the Xi eras. Between 1997 and 2000, Susan served in the Clinton administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, overseeing U.S. relations with China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mongolia.

This interview took place last summer. Much has happened since then, not least the election of Trump. Some parts of this interview may be slightly outdated, but I find it holds up well. Many regard Trump as a hawkish figure on China, so it is refreshing to hear Susan raise the possibility of a U.S.-China reengagement under Trump. America has a history of anti-communist presidents exercising a policy of engagement, from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan; being anti-communist is almost a prerequisite in American politics to practice rapprochement, since only then are you trusted enough to speak to enemies. Maybe history will repeat itself under Trump.

However, most of this interview — which was edited for brevity and clarity — is not about Trump but about China’s own political future. We review missed opportunities and key turning points in the recent history of U.S.-China relations, political changes under Xi Jinping, Susan’s personal relationships with key Chinese foreign policy figures Wang Yi and Fu Ying, and a contemplation of Chinese politics after Xi.

Hope you enjoy.

Best,

Leo

For quick navigation to the specific sections:

The death of U.S.-China cooperation: “China’s behaviour changed. Our reaction also changed.”

Discontent and dictatorial leadership under Xi

China during the “garbage time of history” and beyond

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Recommended readings

Susan Shirk, 2022, Overreach, Oxford University Press

Susan Shirk, 1993, The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China, University of California Press

About us

The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China experts living in the U.S. Their stories are a reminder of what China used to be and what it is capable of becoming.

We also have a Chinese-language Substack. We hope to publish more conversations like this one, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading Peking Hotel! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Susan Shirk discusses more events that happened during her time in the Clinton Administration, including NATO's accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Falun Gong protests in Beijing, and Jiang Zemin's visit to the U.S.

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In this episode of Peking Hotel, China scholar Susan Shirk discusses how she joined the Clinton administration, negotiated the WTO deal, and lost faith in the U.S. ability to improve human rights in China.

Liu He speaks with Ian Johnson, a longtime China journalist and the author of the recent book "Sparks," about his first experiences in China, his reflections on foreign reporting, and his own career covering the country.

The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China experts living in the U.S. Their stories are a reminder of what China used to be and what it is capable of becoming.

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Fox Butterfield is a Pulitzer-winning journalist who has served in Saigon, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Boston, Washington and New York City. He was the first China correspondent of the New York Times since 1949 and opened the Beijing Bureau of the Times in 1979, just after diplomatic relations between China and the US normalised. His journalistic book on China, Alive In The Bitter Sea, became a best-seller and phenomenon in the early 80s, launching the genre of journalist books on contemporary China that generations of journalists soon followed.

I sat down with Fox in late July at his Portland home to record his personal oral history, and take us back to those magical years when China first began to open up in the 70s and early 80s. Fox has the unique vantage point as an Asia correspondent in the Cold War and one of the first American journalists to report in China. His narrative threads together a multifaceted story of a China specialist, informed and enriched by the Cold War context, a Harvard education, journalistic experience in America and Vietnam War, and a life-long interest in China. I walked away from the conversation feeling entertained by Fox’s quirky tales and grounded in the gravitas of the historical context. I hope you will find it interesting too.

This is an episode co-produced with China Books Review, a digital magazine publishing intelligent commentary on all things China and bookish. This issue stitches together two episodes of Fox Butterfield’s oral history most relevant to China, and provides a one-episode overview of his China journey. You may safely skip this one if you have already listened to our previous two pieces

Special thanks to Aorui Pi who edited this audio piece.

About us

Peking Hotel is a bilingual online publication that takes you down memory lane of recent history in China and narrates China’s reality through the personal tales of China experts. Through biweekly podcasts and newsletters, we present colourful first-person accounts of seasoned China experts. The project grew out of Leo’s research at Hoover Institution, where he collects oral histories of prominent China watchers in the West.

Lastly…

Speaking to these thoughtful individuals and sharing their stories with you has been a privilege. Their stories often remind me of what China used to be and what it is capable of becoming. I hope to publish more conversations like this one, so stay tuned!

Please follow our Peking Hotel Substack page for more.

We also have a Chinese-language Substack.

If you are on Instagram, follow us @peking.hotel.