Sinica Podcast

In this episode of Sinica, Clay Shirky, the author of Here Comes Everybody who has written about the internet and its effects on society since the 1990s, joins Kaiser and Jeremy to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of China's tech industry and the extraordinary advances the nation has made in the online world. The hour-long conversation delves into the details and big-picture phenomena driving the globe's largest internet market, and includes an analysis of Xiaomi's innovation, the struggles that successful Chinese companies face when taking their brands abroad and the nation's robust ecommerce offerings. Clay has written numerous books, including Little Rice: Smartphones, Xiaomi, and the Chinese Dream in addition to the aforementioned Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. He is also a Shanghai-based associate professor with New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and the school's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Please take a listen and send feedback to [email protected], or leave a review on iTunes. Recommendations: Jeremy: Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont, and Modern China is So Crazy It Needs a New Literary Genre by Ning Ken Clay: Internet Literature in China by Michel Hockx Kaiser: A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language by David Moser  

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This episode, Jeremy and Kaiser head to the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, to speak with Professor Lyle Goldstein, the author of Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry. Lyle discusses how the United States could accommodate China’s rise without sacrificing American interests by using “cooperation spirals,” the opposite of an escalation spiral. His ideas are sure to surprise those who believe everyone connected to the U.S. military is a hawk. Please take a listen and send feedback to [email protected], or leave a review on iTunes. Recommendations: Jeremy: America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History by Andrew J. Bacevich China vs. USA: Empires at War (2007) directed by Anthony Dufour, on Youtube and Amazon Prime Lyle: The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna Kaiser: The Three Body Trilogy by Liu Cixin: The Three-Body Problem translated by Ken Liu The Dark Forest translated by Joel Martinsen Death’s End translated by Ken Liu

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This live recording of Sinica at the Smyth Hotel in New York City on July 13 features the journalists Mary Kay Magistad and Gady Epstein discussing the increasingly complex "frenemyship" of China and the United States. They also talk about the South China Sea, the role of "old China hands," and how the Middle Kingdom is changing the world and being changed by it. The title of the episode is taken from Mary Kay's radio show and podcast, Whose Century Is it? Mary Kay is a veteran radio journalist who has covered China, North Korea, Southeast Asia, Ethiopia, the Western Sahara, Kashmir and many other places for NPR, PRI and other outlets. Gady has reported on business, current affairs, the internet, and politics in Asia and particularly China since 2002 for the Baltimore Sun, Forbes and The Economist, where he also began covering the media industry after moving back to the U.S. in 2015. They both are regular guests from the podcast's early days.

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This week, Kaiser sits in the guest chair and tells us about his 20-plus years of living in China. He recounts being the front man for the heavy metal band Tang Dynasty and the group's tour stops in China's backwater towns, shares his feelings on moving back to the United States with his family, and discusses the future of the Sinica Podcast. The conversation with Jeremy, Ada Shen and David Moser is one of many 'exit interview' episodes with journalists who are departing China after a long stay. It took place in June 2016, shortly after Kaiser's reentry to the U.S. Recommendations: Kaiser: The films of Sam Dunn about heavy metal. Ada: The End of a Golden Age in China-Taiwan Relations? by Shelley Rigger. When We Were Kings, a documentary about Muhammad Ali. Ralph Stanley, bluegrass musician. David: Wish Lanterns by Alec Ash. Jeremy: Overcast app for podcast listening on iPhones.

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Rob Schmitz, China correspondent for American Public Media’s Marketplace, has been living in the nation on and off since 1995. He is the author of Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road, a book about the people living and working on Changle Lu in Shanghai. You can read the fourth chapter here. Many of the characters who Rob writes about are waidiren — people who moved to Shanghai from elsewhere and tried to make a living by catering to the tastes of well-off residents of the city. One of them, CK, is an accordion salesman turned sandwich restaurant proprietor. Other people featured in the book are Shanghai natives, such as a couple who fights to keep their old house while facing fire-setting thugs hired by developers trying to remake the neighborhood. And then there are Auntie Fu and ‘Mr Clean,’ veterans of the People’s Liberation Army’s Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or the bingtuan. They’re spending their pensions and trying to make a fortune selling questionable sexual potency medicines. We also talk about some people who didn’t make the final edit and why they were left out. They include a paranoid kung fu master and a gay clothing merchant whose sister put the kibosh on his participation in the book. Recommendations: Jeremy: Longform Podcast. Rob: Forthcoming book by Ian Johnson about religion in China (release scheduled for year end). Kaiser: Flipboard reading app for mobile phone.  

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Jiayang Fan is a staff writer for The New Yorker who moved from Chongqing to North America when she was seven years old. Despite her inability to drink alcohol because of an acetaldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency common to many East Asians, she covered the cocktail bars scene — among other topics — for the magazine for several years as a contributor before joining the publication full-time in 2016. She still occasionally writes restaurant and bar reviews, but her recent work has delved into China and its interactions with the world, especially the U.S. and Canada. In this episode of the Sinica Podcast, Jiayang talks with Kaiser and Jeremy about her article on Donald Trump, Trump’s appeal among young Chinese, and the similarities that some people perceive between him and Mao Zedong. She also discusses mainland Chinese attitudes toward Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, being Chinese and writing for a prestigious American magazine, the prejudices against and sensitivities of Asian-Americans, and, of course, Chinese food in New York City. Recommendations: Jeremy: Usborne children’s books, especially Shakespeare tales Jiayang: Reading Tang poetry in Chinese or playing recordings of it for small children (start here if you’re new to the form). The Mala Project restaurant in New York. Kaiser: A rare concert by Cui Jian at Worker’s Stadium in Beijing on September 30, 2016. Listen to Sinica on SupChina, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher, or tune in with your favorite app using our feed.

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Adam Segal is the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies and director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book, The Hacked World Order, provides an in-depth exploration of the issues that most states and large companies now confront in cyberspace. It covers everything from the Twitter wars over Gaza to German reactions to the Snowden leaks. Our conversation focuses on how China sees cyberwarfare, cyberespionage, internet security and sovereignty, and how the nation's perspectives differ from America's. Adam presents a sometimes unsettling but sober and balanced analysis of Chinese and American approaches to attacking, defending and spying in digital realms. He defines a moment he calls “Year Zero” of the hacked world order, a period from mid-2012 to mid-2013 that saw cyberspace abandon its utopian tendencies and transform into a full-on battlefield. Our conversation also covers specific incidents, such as the U.S. Department of Justice's espionage charges against five Chinese hackers and the Chinese infiltration of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's database, as well as the capabilities and ethical concerns of China, the United States and other nations. Recommendations: Jeremy: My wife Wu Fei’s improvisation music videos: Facebook.com/RealWufeiMusic, YouTube.com/WuFeiMusic or Twitter.com/WuFei Adam: The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History by Tonio Andrade Kaiser: Dan Carlin’s Common Sense podcast Kaiser and Jeremy: Steve Orlins, the president of the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations who recently joined us on the podcast along with his colleague, Jan Berris, will lead a discussion on June 27 with former national security advisors. The event in Washington, D.C., is open to the public, but you need to RSVP. More info is here: http://goo.gl/yBT43o

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In this episode of Sinica, we present an in-depth interview with Arthur Kroeber, the founding partner and head of research for Gavekal Dragonomics, an independent global economic research firm, and the editor-in-chief of its journal, China Economic Quarterly.  Arthur's new book, China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know, superbly explores China's astonishing expansion during the "reform and opening up" period and the challenges the country now faces as growth slows. He provides a clear-eyed take on a huge range of subjects, from the internationalization of the renminbi to local debt to the way China's state-owned enterprises function (or don't). The book is a refreshing antidote to much of the commentary in the media, where "The Conventional Wisdom" we discuss in the podcast consists of doomsayers predicting China's imminent collapse and Pollyannas who see the country as an unstoppable economic juggernaut. We love feedback: Please write to [email protected]. Recommendations: Jeremy: The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction by James A. Millward Arthur: The Ibis Trilogy by Amitav Ghosh Kaiser: Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 by Philip A. Kuhn — Kaiser and Jeremy

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In this week's episode of Sinica, we are proud to announce that we're joining forces with SupChina. We're also delighted that our first episode with our new partner is a conversation with President Stephen Orlins and Vice President Jan Berris of the National Committee on United States–China Relations, recorded at their offices in Manhattan. Since 1966, the same year that China's Cultural Revolution began, the National Committee has been the standard bearer for a deeper understanding of the increasingly vital relationship between the United States and China. This month marks the 50th anniversary of the organization's founding. From 1976 to 1979, Orlins served in the Office of the Legal Advisor of the U.S. Department of State, first in the Office of the Assistant Legal Advisor for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and then for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. While in the latter role, Orlins worked on the legal team that helped set up diplomatic relations with China. Berris has been a major force behind the visits of hundreds of American and Chinese delegations to each other's countries, including a journey undertaken in 1972 by the Chinese table tennis team, part of an exchange that became known as Ping Pong Diplomacy. We want to say a huge thank-you to David Lancashire at Popup Chinese in Beijing for six wonderful years of partnership. Best of luck to you, Dave! Please take a listen and send us feedback at [email protected].   Recommendations Jeremy Goldkorn: The Chinese Mayor, a film by Zhao Qi Steve Orlins: This Brave New World: India, China and the United States by Anja Manuel Jan Berris: America has Never Been so Ripe for Tyranny by Andrew Sullivan Kaiser Kuo: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (particularly the Second Epilogue on historiography)

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Fifty years ago, Mao Zedong launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, inaugurating a decade of political turmoil with his calls for young people to "bombard the headquarters." In this special live edition of our podcast recorded at The Bookworm Literary Festival in March, Kaiser Kuo and David Moser welcome Melinda Liu, the longtime China bureau chief of Newsweek for a discussion of the 50th anniversary of this definitive event. Melinda shares stories about her brother, who remained in China after the civil war and experienced it firsthand.

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