This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by historian Timothy Cheek of the University of British Columbia, political scientist Elizabeth Perry of Harvard, and our very own Jeremy Goldkorn, editor-in-chief of The China Project, in a wide-ranging discussion of the Chinese Communist Party on the occasion of its 100th birthday. The three each contributed chapters to a new volume called The Chinese Communist Party: A Century in 10 Lives, edited by Timothy Cheek, Klaus Mülhahn, and Hans van de Ven. Don’t miss this one!

8:59: Cosmopolitan traditions within the CCP

13:10: Continuity and change within the Party

20:19: The oscillations between flexibility and rigidity

34:25: Intellectuals and their relationship with the Party

50:37: Wang Guangmei and the Peach Garden Experience

A full transcript of this episode is available on TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Jeremy: The Dairy Restaurant, by Ben Katchor. 

Elizabeth: Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement, by Cheng Li, and The Wuhan Lockdown, by Yang Guobin.  

Timothy: The Internationale, performed by heavy metal band Tang Dynasty. 

Kaiser: The July/August edition of Foreign Affairs, especially the pieces by Wang Jisi and Yan Xuetong.