Sinica Podcast

This week on Sinica, Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran journalist Ian Johnson, now a senior China fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Kaiser to discuss his new book, Sparks" China's Underground HIstorians and their Battle for the Future. Profiling both prominent and lesser-known individuals working to expose dark truths about some of the grimmest periods of the PRC's history, including the Great Leap Forward famine and the violence of the Cultural Revolution, Johnson argues that the efforts of China's "counter-historians" have managed to survive the stepped-up efforts of Xi Jinping to control the historical narrative completely.

03:27 – Is the obsessive control of historical narratives a particularly Chinese phenomenon?

07:19 – The life of Ai Xiaoming and the creation of a collective memory as one of the main themes in the book

21:46 – The story of Jiang Xue, citizen journalist

25:22 – Journalistic stubbornness of Tan Hecheng

28:39 – Cheng Hongguo and the Zhiwuzhi salon

30:26 – Common traits shared by many Chinese regime critics

37:17 – Is there a link between dissent in China and Christianity?

39:53 – Historical nihilism and sensitive topics for the Chinese Communist Party

47:08 – Are counter-historians especially noteworthy because they’re exceptional, or representative?

57:36 – The most important insight the book adds to our understanding of regime critics in China

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

Recommendations:

Ian: The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas by Gal Beckerman

Unofficial Chinese Archives 

Kaiser: Death in Venice and Other Tales by Thomas Mann, translated by Joachim Neugroschel

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This week on Sinica, Kaiser speaks with Representative Rick Larsen of the Washington 2nd District, the co-founder and continuously serving Democratic co-chair of the bipartisan U.S.-China Working Group. Last month, he published a white paper outlining his recommendations for how the U.S. can more effectively compete. That paper and its recommendations are the focus of this week's show.

02:35 – The origins of the U.S.-China Working Group

04:44 – Updated version of the white paper: new priorities and recommendations in response to the new reality

07:42 – What is the danger of bifurcating the world into blocs in Biden's administration?

11:16 – Four guiding principles behind a four-point strategy.

16:09 – Five issue areas mainly affected by the four-point strategy: national security, development, diplomacy, technology, and education.

18:38 – What should be the approach we take toward China’s Belt & Road Initiative?

29:40 – The ideas for changes in education investment in the U.S. and the role of China

34:08 – The response to the paper from the members of Congress as well as the general public 

37:53 – Is there a bigger change happening regarding the relations with China?

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

Recommendations: 

Rep. Larsen: Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss

Kaiser: The Driftless Area (a topographical and cultural region in the Midwestern United States)

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This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Karen Hao, a reporter recently with the Wall Street Journal whose previous work with the MIT Technology Review has been featured on Sinica; and by Deborah Seligsohn, assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, who has been on the show many times just in the last three years. Both Karen and Deborah have written persuasively about the importance of renewing the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement, first signed in 1979 shortly after the normalization of U.S.-China relations under Jimmy Carter and renewed, for the most part, every five years without much fuss — until this year. Karen and Debbi make clear what has been accomplished under the agreement's auspices, and why GOP concerns are largely misplaced.

03:45 – The origins of the STA and the reasons for establishing it

07:34 – Criticisms against the agreement — the question of IP theft and PLA’s engagement

17:53 – What is the real reason behind such a strong opposition towards the agreement?

22:23 – How have the dynamics between China and the U.S. contribution to the STA changed over the years?

30:36 – The consequences of ending the scientific relationship with China on the example of the terminated space exploration cooperation 

35:23 – Which specific projects would be put on hold in case of lack of renewal of scientific cooperation with China?

41:23 – Other scenarios for cooperation in the area of AI in the possible absence of the STA

50:10 – Are there parts of the agreement that should be enhanced or improved?

53:50 – What’s the chance for a renewal of the agreement after the six-month extension?

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

Recommendations:

Debbi: Abortion Opponents Are Targeting a Signature G.O.P. Public-Health Initiative by Peter Slevin (in The New Yorker)

Karen: Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity by Daren Acemoglu and Simon Johnson

Kaiser: King’s War (Chinese TV series 《楚汉传奇》Chǔhàn chuánqí on Netflix

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This week on Sinica, MIT professor Yasheng Huang joins Kaiser to talk about his brand new book The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why they Might Lead to its Decline. This ambitious and thought-provoking book is bound to stir up quite a bit of controversy. It’s a long conversation — but worth the listen!

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

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Something different this week on Sinica: A selection of "This Week in China's History" columns by James Carter, all narrated by Kaiser with a little interstitial music by Chunqiu (Spring & Autumn).

The columns:

• Not just a metaphor: Dragons of imperial China show us how people lived (1517)
• The ‘Empress of China’ and the beginning of U.S.-China trade (1784)
• The rise of Empress Dowager Cixi (1861)
• In the 7th century, a Chinese coup of Shakespearean proportions (626)
• Titanic’s six Chinese survivors tell a story that goes far beyond a shipwreck (1912)
• The problem with Mao’s ‘continuous’ revolution (1967)
• The Battle of Red Cliffs and the blurring of fact and fiction (208-209)

The music: snippets from

• The Huntsman
• The Last Page (intro)
• The Subcelestial
• A Call from Afar
• Between the Mountains and the Sea
• Born of the Storm
• Born of the Storm (again)
• A New Day
• The Last Page (outro)

All these tracks and more are available on Spotify here or on YouTube here.

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This week on Sinica, Kaiser welcomes back Lyle Goldstein, director for China engagement at the think tank Defense Priorities and previously a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 20 years. Lyle offers his perspectives on an extensive wargaming exercise focusing on a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan, conducted under the auspices of CSIS (the Center for Strategic and International Studies) and published in January of this year — the first such exercise whose findings were made public. He offers insight into the real value of the exercise, as well as some of its shortcomings.

01:03 – The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan – the first large-scale publicly available wargame conducted by CSIS

04:05 – The history of wargaming and its significance

09:09 – What is the value of wargaming?

13:12 – The physical setup of the wargames and the role of dice and technology in contingency

17:49 – The assumptions that go into the game

22:05 – How much agency do the players have?

24:16 – How are the decisions of other countries factored in the wargame?

26:11 – Pros and cons of the CSIS wargame

31:57 – Thoughts on the possibility of nuclear escalation

38:43 – A take on the report’s assumptions and conclusions

47:37 – Will we get a warning?

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

Recommendations:

CSIS Report: The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

Lyle: Yin Yu Tang in Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts

Kaiser: The Story of Civilization [Volumes 1 to 11] by Will & Ariel Durant

Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume 1 by Will Durant

Mentioned:

Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry by Lyle J. Goldstein

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This week on Sinica, Paul Triolo returns to the show to give us a rundown on what’s happening in the exciting arena of generative AI in China. The veteran China tech watcher, who is now Senior VP for China and Technology Policy Lead at Dentons Global Advisors ASG, is Just back from a trip to China during which he spoke with numerous companies working in the space, Paul offers a great overview of what various companies are doing, and how they’re responding to U.S. restrictions on the export of key hardware needed for large AI training and modeling.

03:38 – The Chinese AI community’s reaction to the unveiling of ChatGPT by OpenAI

08:14 – What drives China’s National AI Development strategy?

14:31 – Chinese AI researchers and their perspectives on regulation

21:28 – Is there a lot of investor money going into Generative AI startups?

24:25 – U.S. policy on China’s AI development

35:53 – What will China’s Generative AI look like?

44:14– Companies involved in Chinese AI

51:31 – The changing availability of innovative AI scientists in China

55:10 – How will decoupling effect AI competition?

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

Recommendations:

Paul: The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian

A Lonesome Dove trilogy by Larry McMurtry

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Kaiser: The Righteous Gemstones on HBO

Justified: City Prime Evil on Hulu 

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This week on Sinica, with Kaiser on holiday we're running a terrific Twitter Spaces conversation convened by Neysun Mahboubi of UPenn's Center for the Study of Contemporary China. He's gathered a great group including Yawei Liu, whose U.S.-China Perception Monitor under the Carter Center is the co-sponsor for Neysun's series, as well as Anna Ashton of the Eurasia Group, Robert Daly of the Kissinger Institute, Rorry Daniels of the Asia Society Policy Institute, and Ian Johnson of the Council on Foreign Relations. Enjoy this in-depth exploration of the state of U.S.-China relations — as well as the opening segment on the fate of ex-PRC Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

No transcript this week, but enjoy the show!

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This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Margaret (Maggie) Lewis, professor of law at Seton Hall University and veteran Taiwan observer, and Paul Heer, former national intelligence officer for East Asia in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) under the Obama administration. Both were members of the Council on Foreign Relations’s task force on U.S.-Taiwan policy, which produced a report titled “U.S.-Taiwan Relations in a New Era: Responding to a More Assertive China.” Both also wrote dissents, included in the report, about some of its findings and recommendations. They discuss what they think the report got right — and what it got wrong.

01:01 – Introduction to the CFR’s report U.S.-Taiwan Relations in a New Era: Responding to a More Assertive China

05:09 – The mechanics of producing the report

06:46 – Areas of common consensus among participants

08:48 – What is the significance of the PLA’s centennial in 2027 in view of the CFR task force?

10:54 – Is the report too focused on the military at the expense of political, diplomatic, and economic considerations?

14:22 – Taiwanese perspectives in the report

16:36 – Strategic ambiguity and President Biden’s “gaffes” as a new baseline for U.S. declaratory policy

20:48 – The issue of deterrence: American and Chinese approaches

25:48 – What has the United States done to move the status quo in terms of the Taiwan issue?

41:06 – Is there evidence yet of Chinese preparation for a military action against Taiwan?

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

Recommendations:

Maggie: Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origin by John Sudworth (podcast)

Paul: Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan 

Kennan: A life between Worlds by Frank Costigliola 

Kaiser: The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline by Yasheng Huang

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This week on Sinica, Kaiser welcomes back Jeremy Daum, senior research scholar in law and senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Law Center. Jeremy has a well-deserved reputation as a debunker of myths and misperceptions about China. This time, he takes on the much-discussed “overseas police stations,” and examines how they are — and aren’t — related to China’s transnational repression.

01:03 – The overview of the investigation on Chinese overseas police stations

06:19 – The disparity between the press release and the actual charges against the investigated Chinese individuals

08:48 – The functions of so-called Chinese secret police stations in the U.S.

11:10 – What was wrong with the report written by Safeguard Defenders?

16:57 – What is being national in the aforementioned policies?

19:22 – Evidence of a link between physical presence with transnational repression or repatriation of criminals

26:29 – Is the media narrative regarding popular myths about China slowly changing?

30:22 – Other governments’ views on and actions towards Chinese police stations

31:38 – Tactics used on the return of alleged criminals to China

34:11 – An update on the topic of draft regulations on Generative AI

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

Recommendations:

Jeremy: I’m a Virgo, a television show on Amazon Prime.

Kaiser: A perfect family dinner for the summer: An easy recipe for spicy salmon/tuna

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