Sinica Early Access

This special episode of Sinica starring our very own Jeremy Goldkorn was recorded in New York on July 17. With decades of experience in China-related business, entrepreneurship, and media, Jeremy shares his views on the latest developments in Chinese business, technology, and politics, and tells personal stories from his 20 years living in China.

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This week, while Kaiser is vacationing on the Carolina coast, we are running a March 2014 interview with Orville Schell and David Moser. The discussion in this episode centers on the book co-authored by Schell and John Delury, Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century, and the role of select members of Chinese intelligentsia in the formation of modern China. This discussion provides a window to understand how much views of China’s relationship with the rest of the world have changed significantly since the interview aired five years ago, as well as some reflection and forecasting that still holds true today.

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Emily Feng is one of the rising stars among China reporters. She’s about to take up her post in Beijing as National Public Radio’s correspondent after an illustrious run with the Financial Times. In a show taped a few months ago, Emily speaks with Kaiser and Jeremy about her most recent reporting for the FT, covering important topics related to Xinjiang and technology. She also reflects on why, as a Chinese American, she feels like she’s under added pressure to present accurate and balanced reporting on China.

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The Washington Post recently published an open letter signed by five scholars and former government officials: M. Taylor Fravel, Stapleton Roy, Michael Swaine, Susan Thornton, and Ezra Vogel. The letter laid out seven main arguments for why the U.S. should not treat China as an enemy, and not surprisingly, the letter got a lot of pushback from more hawkish China-watchers. This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy talk to Michael Swaine, the primary author of the open letter, about the origins and intentions of the letter and the reactions to it. Michael is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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This week, we speak again with Antony Dapiran, a corporate lawyer in Hong Kong and author of City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong, to catch up on the fast-moving events in the former British colony. Antony talks about the occupation of the Legislative Council (LegCo) building by protesters, the curious decision by Hong Kong authorities to allow the occupation of that building — which has usually been a red line, to be defended at all cost — and the support that this seems to have within the broader movement. We also discuss reactions of mainland Chinese to events in Hong Kong and ponder what could come next.

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This week, Kaiser chats with Huihan Lie, founder of the genealogical research startup MyChinaRoots, and with two of his colleagues, Clotilde Yap and Chrislyn Choo. The three have fascinating things to say about why a growing number of people are taking a new interest in their ancestry in China, how their company goes about finding information on the family histories of people even several generations removed from China, and some of the surprising and occasionally scandalous things they unearth when they start digging.

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This week, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Taylor Fravel, one of the world's leading authorities on the People's Liberation Army. Taylor has a brand-new book out called Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949, which examines the changes to the PLA's strategy, why they happen, and why, just as importantly, in some moments when we'd expect major changes in strategy, they don’t happen. Join us for this deep dive into the drivers of strategic change in this emerging superpower.

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Antony Dapiran is a seasoned corporate lawyer who has worked in Hong Kong and Beijing for the last two decades. In that time, he has become something of a historian of protest in Hong Kong as well as the author of City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong (2017). In a conversation with Kaiser and Jeremy, Antony brings a historical perspective to his analysis of the current demonstrations over the highly unpopular extradition bill, the shelving of which has not slaked the anger of demonstrators. Along with this Sinica episode, we publish an op-ed by Antony on SupChina: What is Hong Kong for?

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Ryan Hass, who served as the Director for China on the National Security Council during President Barack Obama's second term, is alarmed at the direction that the U.S. policy toward China has been taking, and offers good sense on what we could be doing instead. While clear-eyed about Beijing, he warns that the path Washington is now on will lead to some dire outcomes. Ryan joins Kaiser in a show taped at the Brookings Institution, where Ryan now serves as a Rubenstein fellow with the John L. Thornton China Center.

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