Sinica Podcast

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with David McCourt, associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis. For the last several years, David — who is not himself a China specialist — has undertaken a sociological study of "China-watchers," and has presented his findings to date in a series of papers as he prepares to publish a book. Focusing on China-watchers as a community, he offers fascinating insights into how they interact to shape the major narratives of "engagement" and "strategic competition.

5:24 – Who counts as a “China-watcher”?

13:53 – A taxonomy of China-watchers

 21:43 – Small e engagement and capital E Engagement

 28:35 – The sociological sources of China policy

 37:54 – What China policy positions tell us about America

 45:14 – Habitus and China policy orientation

 55:19 – The China-watching community and American presidential administrations, Obama to Biden

A transcript of this conversation is available at SupChina.com.

 Recommendations: 

 David: Gregoire Chamayou, The Ungovernable Society: A Genealogy of Authoritarian Liberalism

 Kaiser: The works of the great American political scientist Robert Jervis, who died on December 9, especially Perception and Misperception in International Politics and System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life

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This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Damien Ma, managing director and co-founder of the Paulson Institute’s think-tank, MacroPolo. Damien discusses MacroPolo's new forecast of the property market in China and the likely impact of the predicted contraction of that market. Damien also offers advice on what smart China-watchers will be keeping their eyes on in the coming, highly political year in China in the leadup to the 20th Party Congress. And he shares the amusing story of what happened the evening after he last appeared on Sinica way back when.

2:58 – Damien recalls how he nearly led Sinica's interns to their doom one fateful night in 2014

7:23 – MacroPolo's forecast of the property market through 2025

16:28 – How will local governments fund themselves without land sales?

20:11 – Damien's take on Xi Jinping's "common prosperity" agenda

28:53 – Understanding China today through the lens of scarcity

30:49 – Tips for watching developments in China in this political year

40:00 – Cool stuff from MacroPolo

A transcript of this conversation is available on SupChina.com.

Recommendations:

Damien: Derek Thompson, "America is Running on Fumes," in The Atlantic.

Kaiser: Peter Jackson's epic Beatles documentary Get Back on Disney+

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This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser chats with Eileen Guo and Jess Aloe, two members of the three-person team of reporters at the MIT Technology Review who took a data-centered look at the U.S. Department of Justice's China Initiative and uncovered serious problems: an ill-defined mission, low conviction rates, post hoc efforts to remove cases previously described as falling under the China Initiative, and strong evidence of racial profiling.

3:03 – The genesis of the report

9:15 – How the Department of Justice defines — or doesn't define — the China Initiative

19:00 – The deletion of China Initiative cases from the DoJ's website

22:34 – Was the Anming Hu case a watershed?

30:57 – The evidence for racial profiling

38:26 – Biden's conundrum

A transcript of this podcast is available on SupChina.com.

Recommendations:

Eileen: America for Beginners, a novel by Leah Franqui

Jess: The Expanse, a science fiction series on Amazon Prime

Kaiser: Cloud Cuckoo Land, a novel by Anthony Doerr

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The recently-concluded Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) meeting in Dakar, Senegal, generated surprisingly little international press coverage — except for a few stories that seized on what looked, at first blush, like a significant decrease in Beijing's overall investment commitment on the continent. If Beijing sees a concerted effort by the U.S. and Europe to diminish, tarnish, or counteract China's position in Africa, it might well be excused: Its triannual Sino-African love fest, after all, didn't receive nearly as much attention as two problematic stories did: one centering on the alleged Chinese seizure of Uganda's Entebbe Airport, and another claiming that China plans to build a military base in Equatorial Guinea — a base that could threaten the East Coast of the United States, as reports suggested.

And then there's the U.S.-led "Build Back Better World" (B3W) initiative, which was launched at the G7 summit in June, and the European Commission's own answer to China's Belt and Road Initiative: the Global Gateway Strategy, which was announced on the final day of FOCAC. 

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy speak with the Nairobi-based development economist Anzetse Were and Eric Olander, host of the China in Africa Podcast. They both have a lot to say about FOCAC coverage, media narratives on China in Africa, and the likelihood that programs like B3W and Global Gateway can move the needle when it comes to China's position on the continent.

5:08 – Major takeaways from FOCAC 2021

7:19 – Just how much money did China commit this time?

15:57 – FOCAC 2021 as an inflection point in China-Africa relations

19:05 – Media disconnects on the China-Africa story and "psychological self-soothing"

23:33 – The mistaken reports on China's alleged seizure of Entebbe Airport in Uganda

30:28 – The Wall Street Journal's report on China's alleged plans to build a military base in Equatorial Guinea

44:55 – China's vaccine diplomacy in Africa

52:12 – B3W (Build Back Better World) and Global Gateway as counters to the BRI

A transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com

Recommendations:

Jeremy: Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society by Paul Hollander

Anzetse: Market Power and Role of the Private Sector by the China-Africa Business Council; and "Africa's economic transformation: the role of Chinese investment," by Linda Calabrese and Xiaoyang Tang

Eric: "Guānxì: Power, Networking, and Influence in China-Africa Relations," by Paul Nantulya

Kaiser: Beware of Pity, a novel by Stefan Zweig

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This week, we bring you a selection of the best of our China Stories podcast. Launched in late January this year, it has published nearly 400 narrated pieces from the best English-language media outlets focused on China: Sixth Tone, Caixin Global, The Wire China, Protocol China, The World of Chinese, and Week in China — plus, of course, SupChina. The stories are read by Chinese-speaking narrators who won't badly mispronounce Chinese names and other words. If you enjoy this sampling, please make sure to subscribe to China Stories wherever you get your podcasts.

3:04 – Peter Hessler's last class, published in Sixth Tone, written by He Yujia, and read by Elyse Ribbons

25:07 – Luo Jialing, a.k.a. Liza Hardoon, and the height of global Shanghai, written by James Carter, published in SupChina, and read by John D. Van Fleet

37:22 – Qianlong Emperor: The worst poet in Chinese history?, written by Sun Jiahui, published in The World of Chinese, and read by Cliff Larsen

46:52 – Partners in profit, published by Week in China, and read by Sylvia Franke

52:36 – Shot heard round the world: China's Olympic return, written by Sam Davies, published in The World of Chinese, and read by Sarah Kutulakos

58:32 – China's culture wars, now playing on Bilibili, written by Shen Lu, published in Protocol China, and read by Kaiser Kuo

1:07:23 – I sacrificed 16 years to the mines, as told to Gushi FM in Chinese by Chen Nianxi, translated by Nathaniel J. Gan, published in The World of Chinese, and read by Elyse Ribbons

1:34:50 – Family values, excerpted from One Thousand Years of Joys and Sorrows, by Ai Weiwei, published in The Wire China, and read by Kaiser Kuo

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This week on the Sinica Podcast, we bring you Part 2 of a conversation with Lizzi Lee, an economist turned China analyst, and Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In September, Lizzi and Jude joined Kaiser and Jeremy to discuss the wide-ranging set of regulatory moves by Beijing, touching on many disparate realms of Chinese life — from real estate to renewable energy, and from entertainment to education. But much has happened since then, and as we promised at the end of that episode, we reconvened to discuss the same topic at our NEXTChina 2021 conference on November 10-11. Don't miss this one!

3:53 – A reappraisal and clarification of the Red New Deal

9:02 – Kaiser's hypothesis about why Xi Jinping is pushing such far-reaching changes now

10:29 – Lizzi Lee offers her take on the timing

14:41 – Jude on why "Red New Deal" doesn't quite go far enough in describing the changes afoot

18:50 – Lizzi on the dangers of bursting the real estate bubble

27:26 – Has Xi Jinping left any off-ramps?

A transcript of this episode is available at SupChina.com.

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Recent polls conducted by organizations like Gallup and Pew have shown a precipitous decline in U.S. public opinion toward China. But how do the Chinese feel about the U.S.? This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Yawei Liu, senior China advisor at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and with Michael Cerny, associate editor of the Carter Center's China Perception Monitor, about a survey commissioned by the center on Chinese attitudes toward the United States and Chinese perceptions of global opinion on China.

7:48 – The methodology behind the survey

13:02 – The survey's central questions

25:30 – The polarized 55-64 age group

28:17 – The drivers of Chinese negative perceptions of the U.S.

37:35 – Inflection points in Chinese perceptions of the U.S.

45:31 – Generational effects on Chinese perceptions

50:27 – The causal direction: Do negative perceptions of the U.S. boost Chinese notions about international perceptions of China?

A transcript of this interview is available at SupChina.com

Recommendations:

Michael: Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner; and Causal Inference: The Mixtape by Scott Cunningham

Yawei: How the Red Sun Rose by Gao Hua;, translated by Stacey Mosher; and The Battle of Chosin, a documentary film from PBS

Kaiser: Y: The Last Man, a post-apocalyptic TV show from FX, available on Hulu

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This week on Sinica, a live show taped on November 11 at the fourth annual NEXTChina Conference at the China Institute in New York, featuring Peter Hessler. Pete returned to the U.S. from Chengdu over the summer after his contract at Sichuan University, where he was teaching journalism and freshman composition, was not renewed. His departure sparked speculation about government displeasure at his reporting for The New Yorker — despite earlier criticism that his coverage of China's COVID-19 response had been too favorable to Beijing. Pete joins Kaiser and Jeremy to discuss his latest book, The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution, his approach to writing on China, his interactions with his students, and the real reasons for his departure from China.

3:18 – How Egypt sheds light on China

7:00 – Language-learning as a device in Pete Hessler's writing

9:50 – How Pete kept in touch with over 100 students from Fuling — the making of a longitudinal cohort study

18:33 – How Pete is viewed in China vs. in Egypt

25:10 – Pete's writing on Chinese entrepreneurship

29:02 – Why Pete & Leslie moved to Chengdu — and why they had to leave

A transcript of this podcast is available on SupChina.com.

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This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy discuss mental health in China with George Hu, a Shanghai-based clinical psychologist who serves as president of the Shanghai International Mental Health Association and leads the United Family Mental Health Network. George describes how American ideas of psychiatry and psychology have shaped the way Chinese mental health professionals understand mental wellness and mental distress, resulting in the importation of approaches to diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders that may not always be the best fit with China's cultural, sociological, and historical realities.

5:14: – Trying to assess the scale of mental illness in China

9:45 – How mental health is diagnosed and classified in China

19:00 – Mental health and the extraordinary competitiveness of life in China

28:09 – The growing focus on the intersection between culture and mental health in China

37:21 – Issues faced by American students in China

46:17 – Mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic

50:42 – Bicultural therapy

A transcript of this interview is available on SupChina.com.

Recommendations:

Jeremy: Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

by Merlin Sheldrake

George: Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche by Ethan Watters

Kaiser: Awakening from Dukkha from the Inner Mongolian band Nine Treasures

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This week on Sinica, we present a deep-dive into the worldview of China’s leading Party theorist, Wáng Hùníng 王沪宁. Wang — the only member of the Politburo Standing Committee who has not run a province or provincial-level municipality — is believed to have been the thinker behind ideas as central (and as ideologically distinct) as Jiāng Zémín’s 江泽民 signature “Three Represents,” which brought capitalists into the Chinese Communist Party; Hú Jǐntāo’s 胡锦涛 “Scientific Outlook on Development” that focused on social harmony; and Xí Jìnpíng’s “Chinese Dream” that aimed at the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” While much of Wang’s life since he entered government has been hidden from view, his earlier writings contain many ideas that appear to have shaped Party policy across the tenure of three Party general secretaries over a period of nearly three decades, and offer clues about what still might be in store. Kaiser is joined by Joseph Fewsmith III, an eminent professor of political science at Boston University; the intellectual historian Timothy Cheek, professor of history at the University of British Columbia, whose work has focused on establishment intellectuals in the PRC; and Matthew Johnson, principal and founder of the China-focused consultancy AltaSilva LLC, who has studied and written about Wang extensively.

4:31 – An outline of Wang Huning's career

8:36 – Wang Huning's personality and temperament

12:28 – Wang speaks

16:45 – Wang as an example of post-charismatic leadership loyalty

24:02 – Wang's America Against America

31:04 – Wang Huning's concepts of cultural security and cultural sovereignty

46:36 – Wang and Document Number Nine

55:39 – Chinese conceptions of democracy

A transcript of this podcast is available on SupChina.com.

Recommendations:

Matt: The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control by Karl Deutsch; and

The Logic of Images in International Relations by Robert Jervis.

Joe: Now that more Americans recognize that China is not becoming "more like us," they need a deeper understanding of China, and not one just rooted in hostility and militarism.

Tim: In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova.

Kaiser: River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

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