Sinica Podcast

John Grobler is a Namibian investigative reporter who has devoted more than two years of his life to examining the complex webs of organized crime funneling rhino horn from Africa to east Asia. Shi Yi 石毅, a Chinese environmental reporter, worked with him and went undercover posing as a businessperson to meet and report on the young Chinese men who engage in this nefarious activity abroad. Jeremy chatted with both of them when he attended the Africa-China Journalists Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa in November 2016 (listen to his other conversations with African journalists on last week’s Sinica Podcast). Separately, Kaiser interviewed Nicole Elizabeth Barnes of Duke University, an expert on Chinese medicine. Nicole, John, and Shi Yi all discussed China’s role in the illegal rhino horn trade, debunking myths about its use as an aphrodisiac and explaining how upper class and status-conscious Chinese and Vietnamese are fueling demand for this and other rare natural products. All three recommended listeners to support WildAid, one of the foremost organizations campaigning against the poaching of elephants and black rhinos. John also recommends supporting Oxpeckers, an African environmental investigative reporting unit that supports his work in Namibia. Nicole further recommended supporting the World Wildlife Fund, the Nature Conservancy, and marking World Rhino Day, September 22nd, on your calendar to raise awareness of the work CITIES and TRAFFIC do to monitor and crack down on illegal wildlife trade.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In November 2016, Sinica co-host Jeremy Goldkorn attended a conference in his native South Africa called the Africa-China Journalists Forum. The forum was convened to discuss the often-polarized media coverage of China’s involvement in Africa, and to consider how to accentuate the African perspective — rather than the Chinese or Western ones — on how China is changing lives in Africa. In addition to moderating the forum, Jeremy interviewed two organizers of the forum who are longtime observers of China in Africa: Barry Van Wyk and Bob Wekesa. Both are highly knowledgeable of journalism in Africa, and work for the Africa-China Reporting Project at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, where the forum was held. In this short episode, Barry and Bob explain the differences between Chinese, African, and Western journalists, the state of reporting on China-in-Africa issues, and the work that the Africa-China Reporting Project is doing to build a “human grassroots approach” to reporting such a large and controversial story. They also recommended several of their favorite stories that have come out of the project in its work to sponsor aspiring African and Chinese journalists: Nfor Kingsley Monde on China’s role driving deforestation in Cameroon, and on the flipside, Manyanye Paul Ikome on how China has contributed greatly to improving public health in that same country. Other stories on health care, such as this one by Fousseni Saibou. A few highlights from Chinese journalists: Chen Xiaochen on a sisal farm in Tanzania, and Yang Meng on the gold mines of Ghana. Fredrick Mugira on Uganda’s copper mines. Stories on the Standard Gauge Railway being built in Kenya and east Africa, such as this one by Allan Olingo.  

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A top diplomat during the Clinton administration, author of the influential book China: Fragile Superpower: How China’s Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise, research professor and chair of the 21st Century China Center at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego, and co-author of a new high-level task force report on U.S.-China policy, Susan Shirk is one of the most sought-after voices on Chinese politics and U.S.-China relations. Today’s Sinica Podcast features an interview with Susan recorded live on January 30 during the Chinese New Year celebrations at the Long US-China Institute at UC Irvine. Susan talks about how China and its role in the world have dramatically changed in the last decade; how the country’s leaders have grown increasingly fragile and fearful of disloyalty even as their power has grown; and how those leaders likely share her trepidation that the Trump administration may recklessly “trash the entire relationship” between the two countries. Recommendations: Jeremy: His new hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, a wonderful place to visit, contrary to the misconceptions that many coastal Americans have about the South. Also Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Kaiser lives. Susan: The School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego, which has a special focus on Asia and a strong group of China scholars. The China Focus blog, written by students at UC San Diego. The China 21 Podcast, produced by the 21st Century China Center. Kaiser: The Sellout, a satire novel by Paul Beatty, the first American author to win the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the last three years, John Zhu has embarked on a mission to build a bridge between Chinese and Western cultures by retelling one of China’s great classics in accessible audio episodes. He has released over 100 chapters of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. Three Kingdoms, as it is sometimes called, is one of China’s four great novels, along with Water Margin, Journey to the West, and Dream of the Red Chamber. Together, they have exerted an influence in China similar to the extraordinary impact on language and culture of the King James Bible and Shakespeare in the Anglophone world. Three Kingdoms is reminiscent of a fantastical epic like Lord of the Rings, with its tales massive medieval military forces competing for dominance, and introduces hundreds of iconic characters representing the gamut of the human experience. Listen to Jeremy and Kaiser’s interview with John Zhu to get a taste of Three Kingdoms and how John’s global listeners are responding to a Chinese classic. To learn more about China’s four great novels, see this piece by the editors of SupChina. Recommendations: Jeremy: “Trump on China,” ChinaFile’s tracker of every Trump administration statement relating to China, plus quotes from Trump going back five years. John: For readers of Chinese, lianhuanhua.mom001.com (连环画 liánhuánhuà), a website where you can find scanned and catalogued pictures from hundreds of classic Chinese graphic novels and children’s books. For non-readers of Chinese, the Chinese Sayings podcast, new from Laszlo Montgomery (noted for his long-running China History Podcast). A few of the Chinese Sayings episodes have already sought to explain phrases originating from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Kaiser: Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI, a turn-based strategy video game where you can role-play, control cities, develop land, run economies, build and train armies, and strategize wars, all in the historical setting of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sidney Rittenberg is a labor activist from Charleston, South Carolina, who went to China as a translator for the U.S. Army in 1945 and stayed until 1980. In this episode, Sidney talks about the conditions he endured during his two periods of solitary confinement, Sino-American relations, the behavior of Russian advisers sent to China by the Soviet Union, and much more. Part one of our interview is here. You can read a Q&A with Sidney on SupChina here. You can buy Sidney’s books: an autobiography, The Man Who Stayed Behind, and Manage Your Mind: Set Yourself Free, on lessons he learned while in solitary confinement. The Revolutionary is a documentary film about his life (also available on Amazon).

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sidney Rittenberg was a labor activist in the American South before going to China as a translator for the U.S. Army in 1945. He stayed there until 1980, joining the Communist Party and going to the revolutionary base at Yan’an, where he got to know Mao Zedong and other senior members of the Party who went on to govern China. He also spent 16 years in solitary confinement. In this first episode of a two-part interview, Kaiser and Jeremy talk to Sidney about his fascinating life story. You can read a Q&A with Sidney on SupChina here. You can buy Sidney’s books: an autobiography, The Man Who Stayed Behind, and Manage Your Mind: Set Yourself Free, on lessons he learned while in solitary confinement. The Revolutionary is a documentary film about his life.  

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ken Liu is a science-fiction writer, translator, computer programmer, and lawyer. He has written two novels and more than 100 short stories. His short story “The Paper Menagerie” is the first work of fiction, of any length, to win all three of the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Among his translations are two of the three parts of the Chinese science-fiction hit The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin. In this episode of the Sinica Podcast, Ken talks to Kaiser and Jeremy about his own work, the significance of The Three-Body Problem in the Chinese literary world, and the current state of Chinese science fiction. Recommendations: Jeremy: Understanding China Through Comics series, by Liu Jing: Foundations of Chinese Civilization: The Yellow Emperor to the Han Dynasty, Division to Unification in Imperial China: The Three Kingdoms to the Tang Dynasty, and Barbarians and the Birth of Chinese Identity: The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms to the Yuan Dynasty. Ken: Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, by Bee Wilson. Kaiser: Deadwood TV series. References: The Three-Body trilogy, by Liu Cixin: The Three-Body Problem, translated by Ken Liu, The Dark Forest, translated by Joel Martinsen, and Death’s End, translated by Ken Liu. Invisible Planets: An anthology of contemporary Chinese science fiction, translated by Ken Liu. Fiction by Ken Liu: The Grace of Kings, The Wall of Storms (read an excerpt on SupChina here), and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories.  

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alec Ash is a young British writer who lives in Beijing, who has covered “left behind” children in Chinese villages, the “toughest high school exam in the world” and internet live streaming among many other subjects. He is the author of Wish Lanterns, which the Financial Times called a “closely observed study of China’s millennials.” The book tells the stories of six Chinese people born between 1985 and 1990. The characters have very different backgrounds and aspirations, including a rock musician named Lucifer, an internet addict named Snail, and a patriotic Party official’s daughter.   In this episode of the Sinica Podcast, Alec discusses his book with Kaiser, Jeremy, and David Moser. He talks about contemporary youth culture in China, the concerns of Chinese millennials, how he met the six characters in the book and what we can understand about China’s changing culture from their stories. Recommendations: Jeremy: Unreliable Sources: How the Twentieth Century Was Reported, by John Simpson. David: The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China, edited by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. Alec: The Barbarians at the Gate podcast. Kaiser: Battle Cry of Freedom, by James M. McPherson — ”the best single-volume history of the American Civil War that I know of” — and Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping, by Stephen R. Platt.  

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist who has lived in Beijing and Taiwan for more than half of the past 30 years, writing for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and other publications. Ian has written two books: one on civil society and grassroots protest in China (Wild Grass) and another on Islamism and the Cold War in Europe (A Mosque in Munich). His next book, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao will be published in April 2017. Ian has covered the gamut of religious topics in China from the recent tightening of controls on the faithful to shariah with Chinese characteristics to Taoism, and is uniquely qualified to discuss the subject of this episode of the Sinica Podcast: the complicated relationship between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist Party. Kaiser, Jeremy, and frequent guest host David Moser talk to Ian about the Catholic Church in China: the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century, the current state of Catholicism and what the recent apparent warming of relations between the Church and the Party means. Recommendations: Jeremy: Continental Shift: A Journey into Africa's Changing Fortunes, by Kevin Bloom and Richard Poplak. Ian: The Missionary's Curse and Other Tales from a Chinese Catholic Village, by Henrietta Harrison. David: The Mandarin learning website Hacking Chinese. Kaiser: The Westworld TV series.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John Pomfret first went to China as a student in 1980 and covered the Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989 for the Associated Press. He was expelled for his efforts, but returned to Beijing a decade later to head up the Washington Post’s Beijing bureau. For more on his experience and some compelling and little-known stories, listen to the first half of this two-part Sinica Podcast and read our accompanying Sinica backgrounder. In this week’s episode, Kaiser and Jeremy continue to talk with John about his new book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, which charts the history of America’s relationship with China. John explains that the countries have been intertwined long before the ping-pong diplomacy often credited for ushering in U.S.-China relations in the early 1970s. You can read the short prologue to John’s book, republished with permission here. Recommendations: John: The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and The Boat Rocker, by Ha Jin. Kaiser: The albums Tarkus and Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends ~ Ladies and Gentlemen, by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Jeremy: A VICE video on ginseng in the Appalachian Mountains, and The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.