In this episode, Jeremiah and David have a long-overdue discussion with historian and writer Maura Cunningham. Maura was Editor-in-Chief of the classic blog China Beat, a fellow at the Asia Society Center on US-China Relations, Program Officer at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and is now the Digital Media Manager for The Association of Asian Scholars (AAS) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Maura is also the co-author, with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, of the essential book China in the 21st Century: Everything You Need to Know, and the podcast conversation starts with a reconsideration of the book’s title: “What are the new China realities ‘everyone needs to know’ in the post-Covid, post-Xi Jinping era?” We compare notes with Maura about the current state of scholarly research on China, the aftermath of the pandemic on US-China academic exchange programs, and the problems of maintaining standards of academic freedom amidst the tightening of the Chinese information environment. Other topics include a reevaluation of the fundamental goals of China research and the prospects of increased Chinese language training and sinological research activity in China under increasing research limitations in the PRC.Greitens, S., & Truex, R. (2020). Repressive Experiences among China Scholars: New Evidence from Survey Data. The China Quarterly, 242, 349-375. doi:10.1017/S0305741019000365 (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/repressive-experiences-among-china-scholars-new-evidence-from-survey-data/C1CB08324457ED90199C274CDC153127)Will I Return to China?: A ChinaFile Conversation (June 21, 2021) (https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/will-i-return-china)Wasserstrom, J. N., & Cunningham, M. E. (2018). China in the 21st century: What Everyone Needs to Know.