When the National Bureau of Statistics recently revealed that China's population had shrunk in 2022 for the first time in 60 years, conventional wisdom predicted that China was headed for catastrophe, as its workforce shrank, its pension coffers dried up, and its healthcare system grew overtaxed. Not so fast, says Bert Hofman, who spent 22 years in Asia with the World Bank, focused chiefly on China. Now a professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Government at the National University of Singapore, Bert offers a deeply-informed take on the challenges China does face — and how it might address them without suffering economic stagnation.

4:24 – Why population decline isn’t necessarily bad

5:55 – Why are low birth rates a challenge for China?

7:49 – How China can offset the “demographic tax” of population decline

13:40 – Is declining investment such a bad thing for China?

18:27 – Common prosperity and the pension system

23:45 – Challenges and solutions for healthcare reform

27:41 – The logic of beginning with fiscal reform

33:18 – The shortfalls of focusing on raising fertility rates

38:06 – What can China learn from other countries?

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com

Bert: China Reconnects by Wang Gungwu; The Last of Us on HBO Max

Kaiser: Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

This week on Sinica, we welcome back Deborah Seligsohn, assistant professor of political science at Villanova University. Debbi spent October 2022 through early January 2023 in Shanghai and Beijing, experiencing quarantine, testing, and lockdown at firsthand — and witnessing the protests and the sudden reopening. As a close observer of public health issues, she lends valuable perspective to what happened in these critical months.

8:13 – Overview of how zero-COVID impacted different demographics in China

17:54 – Which level of government was held accountable during the zero-COVID protests?

23:03 – Factors that contributed to the breakout of protests

29:05 – Rationale behind the sudden lifting of COVID regulations

38:17 – Assessing Beijing’s failure to effectively expand its medical capacity

45:45 – Efficacy of Chinese vaccines

49:45 – Understanding poor vaccination rate amongst the elderly population

55:45 – Breakdown of China’s COVID situation after the relaxation of zero-COVID measures

1:03:32 – Unpacking the new negative test requirements imposed on Chinese travelers

1:09:56 – Is China under-reporting its death rate?

A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Debbi: two-part interview with Jesse Jenkins from the Volts Podcast, detailing the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS act, and the Infrastructure Bill

Kaiser: Demon Copperhead, the latest novel by Barbara Kingsolver. A coming of age story set in Southern Appalachia.

This week on Sinica, we're proud to introduce you to Susan St. Denis, who joined The China Project full-time recently after running the China Vibe Official TikTok channel for The China Project for the last several months. Kaiser and Susan talk about what people are getting wrong about TikTok, the challenges of presenting complex issues in this medium, and much more!

1:01 – Introducing The China Project’s official TikTok channel: China Vibe TikTok

08:25 – Challenging the assumption that TikTok content is inherently dumbed down

12:13 – Why Susan’s content was a good fit for The China Project

14:30 – Unique challenges of covering China on TikTok

19:16 – Providing a balanced account within TikTok’s landscape of extreme views on China

21:52 – How different generations view China

28:35 – How to access Susan’s China TikTok content

29:39 – How legitimate are the security and privacy concerns surrounding TikTok?

A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations –

Susan: Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China by Han Suyin; The China America Student Conference (www.iscdc.org)

Kaiser: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford; and an ambivalent endorsement of the Conqueror series by Conn Iggulden.

This week on Sinica, check out the first episode of the latest season of "Strangers in China," with host Clay Baldo!

The 2022 Shanghai lockdown came to Clay’s neighborhood early and caught him off-guard. Struggling with his mental health, Clay documents how lockdown works on a granular level giving listeners an audio tour of his neighborhood as it plunges into the uncertainty of all the minutiae of day-to-day life living under the control of the apparatuses that shut down an entire city for several months. The boredom, the stress, the terror. He documents clashes with local bureaucracy and the ingenuity of the people of Shanghai who had to live through these dark and strange times. Clay ventures out into a city as it’s about to enter the full city lockdown and gives listeners a sense of what a city looks like before it's irrevocably changed.

Csus - https://soundcloud.com/csus

Moss Heim- https://soundcloud.com/mossheim-experimental/cutup-test-cycle-7000

Trey - https://soundcloud.com/tristan-phipps-1/trance

Jaies - https://soundcloud.com/jaiess

Bary - https://soundcloud.com/bary_is_cool

Ginger pitcher - https://soundcloud.com/gingerpitcherfredfroh

TDP-Experimental - https://soundcloud.com/user-99078702

Xxiuk - https://soundcloud.com/xxiuk

Lakey Inspired - https://soundcloud.com/lakeyinspired

TazLazuli - https://soundcloud.com/tazlazuli

Terri skills -  https://soundcloud.com/beatz-by-terri-skillz

Lofee - https://soundcloud.com/lofeetunes

Dr3am - https://soundcloud.com/dr3am-official

Purrple Cat - https://soundcloud.com/purrplecat

Ye Old Experimental Junk - https://soundcloud.com/ye-old-experimental-junk

Le gang - https://soundcloud.com/thisislegang

Obani - https://soundcloud.com/obani

Jozwyn - https://soundcloud.com/jozwyn

MCV - https://soundcloud.com/just-chillin-654995634

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-60893070

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-12/shanghai-residents-remain-largely-under-lockdown-despite-easing

https://isdp.eu/publication/xi-jinping-and-the-administrative-hierarchy-and-subdivisions-in-china/

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/elizabethperry/files/managed_campaigns_-_proofs.pdf

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178528.shtml

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1184356.shtml

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/694299

https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1209&context=psilr

https://www.smh.com.au/world/pocket-of-poverty-the-new-shanghai-has-left-behind-20121109-293dl.html

https://www.scmp.com/video/china/3187061/shanghais-old-west-gate-neighbourhood-emptied-demolition-and-redevelopment

https://academic.oup.com/columbia-scholarship-online/book/20259/chapter-abstract/179324873?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

The work of Michel Foucault

We proudly present Episode 1 of the new season of Strangers in China, part of the Sinica Network from The China Project. In this season, host Clay Baldo provides an intimate look at the lockdown in Shanghai, from the foreboding that preceded it through the harrowing days of the lockdown itself.

Be sure to subscribe to the show, too! Just look up Strangers in China in your podcast app of choice and hit subscribe.

2:21 – A preview of this season of Strangers in China

8:23 – The Shanghai fāngcāng方舱 and emergence of spontaneous mass gatherings

13:28 – Explaining the role of neighborhood committees/ jūwěihuì 居委会 in China

18:39 – The exploration of mental health throughout this podcast

24:21 – Clay’s process in producing the podcast

28:06 – The editorial choice to not dub over Chinese speakers

31:29 – Can the protests like the one that broke out on Urumqi Lu emerge again?

37:15 – Examples of strong group solidarity during the lockdown

43:35 – Clay’s thoughts on the recent loosening of restrictions

A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Clay: 3 Shanghai fashion Instagram accounts to follow – Windowsen (@windowsen), Susu, (@_su.su.su.su). Lexi (@jing_sen_); and the book Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott.

Kaiser: The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Rebecca Kuang (who writes under the name R.F. Kuang), the author of the best-selling historical fantasy novel Babel. Set in the 1830s in England, the novel’s Chinese-born protagonist sets out to prevent a war with China over the opium trade. It’s a novel about the industrial revolution, labor activism, revolution, and — surprisingly — language, etymology, and translation.

2:28 – On Rebecca's own connections to China and her anxieties about losing the Chinese language

8:27 – What historical insights Rebecca hoped her readers would take away from Babel

14:37 – Parallels between the U.K. of the early 19th century and the U.S. of the early 21st

20:26 – Refections on revolution and revolutionaries

25:48 – Silver working: the magic system in Babel and its relation to language

30:37 – Issues with translation theory presented in the book

38:04 – How Rebecca’s background in debate influenced her writing style

45:03 – Rebecca's forthcoming novel Yellowface

A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Rebecca: The film Banshees of Inisherin and other works by its director, Martin McDonagh, including the dark comedy In Bruges (2008).

Kaiser: The new novel by Cormac McCarthy The Passenger, and a review of it by James Wood in The New Yorker.

This week on Sinica, Jude Blanchette (Freeman Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies) and Ryan Hass (Armacost Chair at the John L. Thornton Center at the Brookings Institute) join Kaiser to discuss their new essay in Foreign Affairs, "The Taiwan Long Game: Why the Best Solution Is No Solution.”

3:05 –  Reconceptualizing Taiwan as “a strategic problem with a defense component”

6:00 – Why expanding the scope of the Taiwan issue beyond the military dimension should not be conflated with capitulation

13:34 – Has current U.S. policy abandoned preserving status quo cross-strait relations?

17:27 – Why has China refrained from the use of force thus far?

27:05 – China, U.S., and Taiwan’s heightened sense of urgency

31:22 – How Ukraine alters China’s decision calculus on Taiwan

36:44 – What pertinent challenges should the US be planning for rather than exclusively focusing on the threat of invasion?

43:58 – The issue with democracy vs authoritarianism framing

46:01 – The importance of considering Taiwanese agency when crafting US policy

48:40 – How the U.S. should define its one-China policy

53:19 – Opportunities for a detente between Washington and Beijing

A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Ryan: "How We Would Know When China Is Preparing to Invade Taiwan," by John Culver; the film White Christmas

Jude: The podcast In the Dark from American Public Media

Kaiser: "A Professor Who Challenges the Washington Consensus on China," Ian Johnson’s piece in The New Yorker about Jessica Chen Weiss

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy welcome Diana Choyleva and Dinny McMahon, who recently published a report for the Wilson Center on China's efforts to internationalize the Renminbi, its currency. Diana Choyleva is chief economist and founder of Enodo Economics, an independent macroeconomic forecasting consultancy she set up in 2016. Dinny McMahon is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the book China's Great Wall of Debt. Their report is called “China’s Quest for Financial Self-Reliance: How Beijing Plans to Decouple from the Dollar-Based Global Trading and Financial System.”

2:38 – The advantages the U.S. enjoys through the dollar’s global primacy

4:40 –  How Beijing sees the dollar’s dominance as a strategic vulnerability

7:11 – Other countries who actively pursued internationalization of their currency

10:07 – International trust deficit regarding China’s currency

13:37 – Right-sizing China’s currency ambitions

15:13 – How China incentives increased demand for the RMB

24:19 – Are we currently at a critical turning point of currency displacement?

36:42 – The role of digital currency in China’s monetary strategy

43:42 – The BRI as a mechanism for expanding the circulation of the RMB

A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Jeremy: This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay; Kay's Anatomy by Adam Kay

Diana: Picking up dancing as a pastime; China: The Gathering Threat by Constantine Menges

Dinny: Lombard Street by Walter Bagehot

Kaiser: The Amazon miniseries The English

This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Michael J. Mazarr, author of the book Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America's Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy, which examines the decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. Mike is a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation and a former professor at the National War College, and he warns of certain parallels between what happened 20 years ago and the growing sense of urgency and moral imperative to confront China that he now senses in Washington.

3:40 – Patterns that lead to poor decision-making in the realm of foreign policy and warfare

8:30 – Parallels between American discourse on Iraq and China

13:54 – American exceptionalism and the missionary mindset

15:51 – Much like the US experience after 9/11, could an equivalent “deeply felt imperative” trigger catastrophic conflict with China?

21:15 – The danger of moralistic thinking overriding rational cost-benefit analysis

27:37 – What does Washington hope to gain from the imputation of CCP illegitimacy?

31:47 – Debunking the claim that Washington exaggerates threats for the sake of increasing the defense budget

35:49 – The role of media and Congress in the lead-up to the Iraq war

40:49 – The difference between effective policymaking and policy negligence: assessing the Bush and Biden administrations

47:29 – Adapting the liberal “rules-based international order” to reflect contemporary realities

52:27 – The shortcomings of a reductionist “democracy vs. authoritarianism” foreign policy

A full transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Mike: Mr. X and the Pacific by Paul Heer; The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment by Geoffrey Kabaservice

Kaiser: Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang

We've got a special bonus episode this week on the protests over the weekend of November 26th-27th in multiple cities around China. Joining Kaiser and Jeremy are old friends David Moser and Jeremiah Jenne, co-hosts of the Barbarians at the Gate podcast, who have 50 years in Beijing between them. David Moser is a linguist, academic administrator, and accomplished jazz pianist and composer. Jeremiah Jenne is a writer and historian. Both David and Jeremiah are still in Beijing, and they offer an on-the-ground account of what happened and what it all means.

3:12 – Summary of latest protest developments

7:55 – Popular Chinese sentiments regarding the virus   

10:23 – The scale of these protests

13:22 – Demographics of the protests

17:06 – How the Urumqi fire incident exacerbated latent frustrations

20:39 – The zero-COVID policy’s disproportionate burden on women

26:23 – Have loosened restrictions paradoxically been the impetus for popular protest?

30:57 – WeChat account suspension and the censorship apparatus response  

35:13 – The role of students in the protests

40:29 – Comparisons between the current protest movement and 1989

42:44 – Assessing the limits of the protestors’ demands

44:49 – The salience of “hostile foreign influence” argument for the public   

51:42 – How vaccination skepticism prolonged the zero-COVID policy

55:04 – The police and security apparatus response thus far

A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Jeremy: The Twitter account 李老师不是你老师 (Lǐ lǎoshī bùshì nǐ lǎoshī), with the handle @whyyoutouzhele; Cindy Yu’s Twitter account @CindyXiaodanYu

Jeremiah: Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China by Ruth Rogaski

David: The Globe and Mail article “In rare show of weakness, China's censors struggle to keep up with zero COVID protests” by James Griffith; Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language by James Griffith

Kaiser: Happiness is 4 Million Pounds, a New York Times documentary by Hao Wu