This week on Sinica, Kaiser welcomes Taisu Zhang, professor of law at Yale University, who discusses his recent work on the expansion of the administrative state down to the subdistrict and neighborhood level — changes that are far-reaching, and likely permanent. They also discuss a recent essay in Foreign Affairsi n which Taisu argued that Beijing is shifting away from "performance legitimacy" as the foundation of political rule, and more toward legality — not to be confused with the rule of law. 3:29 – Nationalism as legitimacy, and its grounding in economic performance 7:45 – The CCP’s unique approach to “legal legitimacy” 21:28 – Evidence from the Two Meetings, or 兩會 liǎnghuì 35:56 – Chinese Administrative Expansion in the Xi Jinping Era 49:40 – The role of the anti-corruption campaign in expanding local government authority 56:18 – Changes in local governance after COVID 1:01:27 – Who were the dàbái? 1:04:10 – Technology in China’s post-pandemic power structure A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Taisu: The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy by David Graeber; The Rise and Fall of Imperial China: The Social Origins of State Development by Yuhua Wang; Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State by Maura Dykstra; The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu; and The Lower Yangzi Trilogy by Ge Fei Kaiser: Kaiser: Assignment China: An Oral History of American Journalists in the People's Republic by Mike Chinoy; and the many uses of beeswax See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Lulu Chen, who has reported on tech in China for over a decade and is the author of the book Influence Empire: The Inside Story of Tencent and China's Tech Ambition. It's a fascinating look at not only Tencent but at the overall internet sector in China, focusing on the travails and the triumphs of some of the most consequential Chinese internet entrepreneurs. 5:31 – Motivation for and background of Influence Empire 10:15 – Ma Huateng and Martin Lau at Tencent 19:56 – How the Chinese internet sector went from copying to innovating 30:59 – Cutthroat company cultures 33:20 – What made Allen Zhang successful? 37:25 – The Tencent-Meituan food delivery coup 45:21 – Tencent’s position in the online game industry 51:58 – Understanding China’s 2020-2022 tech crackdown A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Lulu: The Gay Talese Reader: Portraits and Encounters by Gay Talese Kaiser: Cunk on Earth on Netflix See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A second full episode this week for you Sinica listeners! Jude Blanchette joins to talk about the House Select Committee on United States Competition with the Chinese Communist Party, and all that is wrong with it, from its framing of the CCP as an "existential threat" to its focus on the CCP, and how all of this adds up to an embarrassing moral panic that distracts from the serious issues the U.S. confronts when it comes to China. 4:37 – What’s wrong with the Select Committee’s framing of China as an “existential threat,” and why the first hearing was an embarrassment 9:01 – The current moment as a moral panic over China 12:09 – Domestic political drivers of U.S. China policy 15:04 – Why the United States versus the Chinese Communist Party is the wrong framing too 22:46 – Is this more like McCarthyism — or antisemitism?  28:58 – The downstream effects of U.S. tech containment policy toward China 42:01 – The advantage of simplistic, Manichean messaging 46:15 – Prioritizing U.S. issues with China: why Confucius Institutes and TikTok are so far down the to-do list, and what really matters48:59 – And what are the real issues that deserve priority? A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com Recommendations: Jude: Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon by Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam, from Audible Kaiser: This podcast interview with Angela Rasmussen, the virologist who has been in the front lines fighting back against the resurgent lab leak theory, from the Slate What Next: TBD podcast See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy speak with Henry Sanderson, a former AP and Bloomberg reporter who was based in China for many years, about his book Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green — a book that reminds us of the very ugly fact that the metals that are needed to make electric vehicle batteries need to be dug out of the earth, and processed in ways that are anything but environmentally friendly. Henry talks about China's outsize role in lithium, cobalt, and nickel processing, as well as some promising chemistries that allow for EV batteries without some of the problematic metals. 2:49 – China’s role in the EV battery supply chain 9:36 – Global Chinese investments in lithium mines 14:04 – Is cobalt a necessary evil? 18:56 – Can NGO pressure induce better corporate behavior in EV battery supply chains? 21:28 – How Indonesia used its nickel resources to attract Chinese FDI 26:17 – China’s efforts to innovate around scarce metals 32:08 – China’s metal processing industry: State- or market-driven? 36:06 – Lessons from Europe’s battery industry 40:42 – Electrification of two-wheeled vehicles A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Jeremy: London Review of Books Henry: The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir by Karen Cheung Kaiser: Tracking the People’s Daily newsletter by Manoj Kewalramani See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's been one year now since Vladimir Putin launched his assault on Ukraine, and China has sought to maintain the same difficult, awkward straddle across a difficult year. Did Beijing's efforts to project the impression that it had distanced itself from Russia in the wake of the Party Congress mean anything? And how should the U.S. manage its expectations of what China can or will do? Evan Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, joins us again as he did a year ago. We're also joined by his colleague Alexander (Sasha) Gabuev, who is a senior fellow at Carnegie, who headed the Carnegie Moscow Center until recently. 4:37 – Are Beijing’s actions surprising? 7:34 – The nature of China-Russia relations 15:45 – How has Beijing concretely supported Russia? 22:07 – Did Beijing know Putin was going to invade? 29:48 – European perspectives on the No Limits partnership 37:02 – Beijing’s assessment of Russia’s military performance 39:07 – What Beijing has learned from Russia’s invasion 46:47 – What carrots can the United States offer China? A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Sasha:  Writing From Ukraine: Fiction, Poetry and Essays since 1965 by Mark Andryczyk Evan: The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War,1916-1917 by Philip Zelikow Kaiser: Jessica Chen Weiss on The Ezra Klein Show and The Problem With Jon Stewart; "Avoiding Catastrophe Will Be the True Test of Fractious U.S.-China Relations," an op-ed in the Financial Times by Jude Blanchette See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Raffaello Pantucci, co-author of the 2022 book Sinostan: China's Inadvertent Empire, which examines China's presence in Central Asia. Based on extensive travel and interviews undertaken both before and after the tragic murder of his co-author, Alexandros Petersen, in 2014, the book is a highly readable if difficult to categorize melange of analysis and anecdote, history and travelogue, and it paints a complex portrait of China's extensive efforts to build out a network of commercial and cultural ties throughout the pivotal region. 3:48 – Remembering the late Alexandros Petersen 9:35 – Xinjiang’s importance in Beijing’s Central Asia policy 13:36 – Central Asian states’ reactions to Xinjiang internment camps 24:39 – Assessing China’s soft power in Central Asia 37:10 – BRI: strategic calculus or ad-hoc scramble? 43:32 – Evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 49:45 – China’s characterization of terrorism 54:45 – The SCO today and China’s growing security footprint 1:03:03 – China in Afghanistan 1:10:36 – Current status of the BRI A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Raffaello: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan; The Geographical Pivot of History by Halford Mackinder Kaiser: Volt Rush by Henry Sanderson See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we've got a short show focused on the Chinese balloon that became the obsessive focus of American attention from Thursday through Sunday, February 5, when an F-22 shot it out of the sky off of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Gerard DiPippo, a senior fellow with the Economics Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, joins to discuss the incident and its potential fallout. We'll have the transcript for you on the website in a day or so. 2:27 –Establishing the facts about the Balloon 4:32 – Precedents for U.S. reactions to aerial surveillance 7:36 – Was the balloon’s flight path intentional? 9:34 – Why did the Pentagon go public? 13:26 – The thinking behind Blinken’s postponement 15:47 – Reactions in U.S. media 17:19 – Beijing’s perspective on the U.S. reaction 20:23 – How Gerard Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Balloon A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Gerard: The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present, by John Pomfret Kaiser: Improbable Diplomats: How Ping-Pong Players, Musicians, and Scientists Remade US-China Relations by Pete Millwood See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, our live recording from the Rizzoli Bookstore in the Flatiron district of Manhattan with the legendary Ian Johnson, who has covered China for a host of publications spanning 35 years. Ian, who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, offers his analysis of media coverage, shares some pet peeves in the way China is reported, and offers a sneak peek at some of the themes of his forthcoming book. 4:31 – Beijing’s shifting diplomatic messaging 12:10 – U.S. media coverage of China’s COVID-19 policies 14:45 – Structural biases of reporting on/in China 24:05 – Reporting on China through social media 29:46 – Resisting and recasting the blob’s China narrative 39:52 – How think tanks affect China discourse in the U.S. 43:03 – The importance of history to the CCP A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Jeremy: Paul French's Ultimate China Bookshelf, a new feature at The China Project Ian: Golden Age by Wáng Xiaǒbō 王小波, translated by Yan Yan; Blue Note jazz LP re-issues  Kaiser: Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy, narrated by Julia Whelan and Edoardo Ballerini See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When the National Bureau of Statistics recently revealed that China's population had shrunk in 2022 for the first time in 60 years, conventional wisdom predicted that China was headed for catastrophe, as its workforce shrank, its pension coffers dried up, and its healthcare system grew overtaxed. Not so fast, says Bert Hofman, who spent 22 years in Asia with the World Bank, focused chiefly on China. Now a professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Government at the National University of Singapore, Bert offers a deeply-informed take on the challenges China does face — and how it might address them without suffering economic stagnation. 4:24 – Why population decline isn’t necessarily bad 5:55 – Why are low birth rates a challenge for China? 7:49 – How China can offset the “demographic tax” of population decline 13:40 – Is declining investment such a bad thing for China? 18:27 – Common prosperity and the pension system 23:45 – Challenges and solutions for healthcare reform 27:41 – The logic of beginning with fiscal reform 33:18 – The shortfalls of focusing on raising fertility rates 38:06 – What can China learn from other countries? A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com Recommendations: Bert: China Reconnects by Wang Gungwu; The Last of Us on HBO Max Kaiser: Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, we welcome back Deborah Seligsohn, assistant professor of political science at Villanova University. Debbi spent October 2022 through early January 2023 in Shanghai and Beijing, experiencing quarantine, testing, and lockdown at firsthand — and witnessing the protests and the sudden reopening. As a close observer of public health issues, she lends valuable perspective to what happened in these critical months. 8:13 – Overview of how zero-COVID impacted different demographics in China 17:54 – Which level of government was held accountable during the zero-COVID protests? 23:03 – Factors that contributed to the breakout of protests 29:05 – Rationale behind the sudden lifting of COVID regulations 38:17 – Assessing Beijing’s failure to effectively expand its medical capacity 45:45 – Efficacy of Chinese vaccines 49:45 – Understanding poor vaccination rate amongst the elderly population 55:45 – Breakdown of China’s COVID situation after the relaxation of zero-COVID measures 1:03:32 – Unpacking the new negative test requirements imposed on Chinese travelers 1:09:56 – Is China under-reporting its death rate? A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Debbi: two-part interview with Jesse Jenkins from the Volts Podcast, detailing the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS act, and the Infrastructure Bill Kaiser: Demon Copperhead, the latest novel by Barbara Kingsolver. A coming of age story set in Southern Appalachia. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, we're proud to introduce you to Susan St. Denis, who joined The China Project full-time recently after running the China Vibe Official TikTok channel for The China Project for the last several months. Kaiser and Susan talk about what people are getting wrong about TikTok, the challenges of presenting complex issues in this medium, and much more! 1:01 – Introducing The China Project’s official TikTok channel: China Vibe TikTok 08:25 – Challenging the assumption that TikTok content is inherently dumbed down 12:13 – Why Susan’s content was a good fit for The China Project 14:30 – Unique challenges of covering China on TikTok 19:16 – Providing a balanced account within TikTok’s landscape of extreme views on China 21:52 – How different generations view China 28:35 – How to access Susan’s China TikTok content 29:39 – How legitimate are the security and privacy concerns surrounding TikTok? A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations –  Susan: Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China by Han Suyin; The China America Student Conference (www.iscdc.org) Kaiser: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford; and an ambivalent endorsement of the Conqueror series by Conn Iggulden. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, we proudly present Episode 1 of the newest season of Strangers in China: Lockdown Part 1: A day in the life. The 2022 Shanghai lockdown came to Clay’s neighborhood early and caught him off-guard. Struggling with his mental health, Clay documents how lockdown works on a granular level giving listeners an audio tour of his neighborhood as it plunges into the uncertainty of all the minutiae of day-to-day life living under the control of the apparatuses that shut down an entire city for several months. The boredom, the stress, the terror. He documents clashes with local bureaucracy and the ingenuity of the people of Shanghai who had to live through these dark and strange times. Clay ventures out into a city as it’s about to enter the full city lockdown and gives listeners a sense of what a city looks like before it's irrevocably changed.  Music credits: Csus https://soundcloud.com/csus Moss Heim- https://soundcloud.com/mossheim-experimental/cutup-test-cycle-7000 Trey https://soundcloud.com/tristan-phipps-1/trance Jaies https://soundcloud.com/jaiess Bary https://soundcloud.com/bary_is_cool Ginger pitcher https://soundcloud.com/gingerpitcherfredfroh TDP-Experimental https://soundcloud.com/user-99078702 Xxiuk https://soundcloud.com/xxiuk Lakey Inspired https://soundcloud.com/lakeyinspired TazLazuli https://soundcloud.com/tazlazuli Terri skills https://soundcloud.com/beatz-by-terri-skillz Lofee https://soundcloud.com/lofeetunes Dr3am____ https://soundcloud.com/dr3am-official Purrple Cat https://soundcloud.com/purrplecat Ye Old Experimental Junk https://soundcloud.com/ye-old-experimental-junk Le gang https://soundcloud.com/thisislegang Obani https://soundcloud.com/obani Jozwyn https://soundcloud.com/jozwyn MCV https://soundcloud.com/just-chillin-654995634 Works consulted https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-60893070 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-12/shanghai-residents-remain-largely-under-lockdown-despite-easing https://isdp.eu/publication/xi-jinping-and-the-administrative-hierarchy-and-subdivisions-in-china/ https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/elizabethperry/files/managed_campaigns_-_proofs.pdf https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178528.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1184356.shtml https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/694299 https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1209&context=psilr https://www.smh.com.au/world/pocket-of-poverty-the-new-shanghai-has-left-behind-20121109-293dl.html https://www.scmp.com/video/china/3187061/shanghais-old-west-gate-neighbourhood-emptied-demolition-and-redevelopment https://academic.oup.com/columbia-scholarship-online/book/20259/chapter-abstract/179324873?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false The work of Michel Foucault See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We proudly present Episode 1 of the new season of Strangers in China, part of the Sinica Network from The China Project. In this season, host Clay Baldo provides an intimate look at the lockdown in Shanghai, from the foreboding that preceded it through the harrowing days of the lockdown itself. Be sure to subscribe to the show, too! Just look up Strangers in China in your podcast app of choice and hit subscribe. 2:21 – A preview of this season of Strangers in China 8:23 – The Shanghai fāngcāng方舱 and emergence of spontaneous mass gatherings 13:28 – Explaining the role of neighborhood committees/ jūwěihuì 居委会 in China   18:39 – The exploration of mental health throughout this podcast 24:21 – Clay’s process in producing the podcast 28:06 – The editorial choice to not dub over Chinese speakers  31:29 – Can the protests like the one that broke out on Urumqi Lu emerge again? 37:15 – Examples of strong group solidarity during the lockdown 43:35 – Clay’s thoughts on the recent loosening of restrictions A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Clay: 3 Shanghai fashion Instagram accounts to follow – Windowsen (@windowsen), Susu, (@_su.su.su.su). Lexi (@jing_sen_); and the book Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott.  Kaiser: The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Rebecca Kuang (who writes under the name R.F. Kuang), the author of the best-selling historical fantasy novel Babel. Set in the 1830s in England, the novel’s Chinese-born protagonist sets out to prevent a war with China over the opium trade. It’s a novel about the industrial revolution, labor activism, revolution, and — surprisingly — language, etymology, and translation. 2:28 – On Rebecca's own connections to China and her anxieties about losing the Chinese language 8:27 – What historical insights Rebecca hoped her readers would take away from Babel 14:37 – Parallels between the U.K. of the early 19th century and the U.S. of the early 21st 20:26 – Refections on revolution and revolutionaries 25:48 – Silver working: the magic system in Babel and its relation to language 30:37 – Issues with translation theory presented in the book 38:04 – How Rebecca’s background in debate influenced her writing style 45:03 – Rebecca's forthcoming novel Yellowface A transcript of this podcast will be available soon at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Rebecca: The film Banshees of Inisherin and other works by its director, Martin McDonagh, including the dark comedy In Bruges (2008). Kaiser: The new novel by Cormac McCarthy The Passenger, and a review of it by James Wood in The New Yorker. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Jude Blanchette (Freeman Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies) and Ryan Hass (Armacost Chair at the John L. Thornton Center at the Brookings Institute) join Kaiser to discuss their new essay in Foreign Affairs, "The Taiwan Long Game: Why the Best Solution Is No Solution.” 3:05 – Reconceptualizing Taiwan as “a strategic problem with a defense component”  6:00 – Why expanding the scope of the Taiwan issue beyond the military dimension should not be conflated with capitulation 13:34 – Has current U.S. policy abandoned preserving status quo cross-strait relations? 17:27 – Why has China refrained from the use of force thus far? 27:05 – China, U.S., and Taiwan’s heightened sense of urgency 31:22 – How Ukraine alters China’s decision calculus on Taiwan 36:44 – What pertinent challenges should the US be planning for rather than exclusively focusing on the threat of invasion? 43:58 – The issue with democracy vs authoritarianism framing 46:01 – The importance of considering Taiwanese agency when crafting US policy 48:40 – How the U.S. should define its one-China policy 53:19 – Opportunities for a detente between Washington and Beijing A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Ryan: "How We Would Know When China Is Preparing to Invade Taiwan," by John Culver; the film White Christmas  Jude: The podcast In the Dark from American Public Media Kaiser: "A Professor Who Challenges the Washington Consensus on China," Ian Johnson’s piece in The New Yorker about Jessica Chen Weiss See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy welcome Diana Choyleva and Dinny McMahon, who recently published a report for the Wilson Center on China's efforts to internationalize the Renminbi, its currency. Diana Choyleva is chief economist and founder of Enodo Economics, an independent macroeconomic forecasting consultancy she set up in 2016. Dinny McMahon is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the book China's Great Wall of Debt. Their report is called “China’s Quest for Financial Self-Reliance: How Beijing Plans to Decouple from the Dollar-Based Global Trading and Financial System.” 2:38 – The advantages the U.S. enjoys through the dollar’s global primacy 4:40 – How Beijing sees the dollar’s dominance as a strategic vulnerability 7:11 – Other countries who actively pursued internationalization of their currency 10:07 – International trust deficit regarding China’s currency 13:37 – Right-sizing China’s currency ambitions 15:13 – How China incentives increased demand for the RMB 24:19 – Are we currently at a critical turning point of currency displacement? 36:42 – The role of digital currency in China’s monetary strategy   43:42 – The BRI as a mechanism for expanding the circulation of the RMB  A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Jeremy: This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay; Kay's Anatomy by Adam Kay  Diana: Picking up dancing as a pastime; China: The Gathering Threat by Constantine Menges Dinny: Lombard Street by Walter Bagehot Kaiser: The Amazon miniseries The English See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Michael J. Mazarr, author of the book Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America's Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy, which examines the decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. Mike is a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation and a former professor at the National War College, and he warns of certain parallels between what happened 20 years ago and the growing sense of urgency and moral imperative to confront China that he now senses in Washington. 3:40 – Patterns that lead to poor decision-making in the realm of foreign policy and warfare 8:30 – Parallels between American discourse on Iraq and China 13:54 – American exceptionalism and the missionary mindset   15:51 – Much like the US experience after 9/11, could an equivalent “deeply felt imperative” trigger catastrophic conflict with China? 21:15 – The danger of moralistic thinking overriding rational cost-benefit analysis 27:37 – What does Washington hope to gain from the imputation of CCP illegitimacy?   31:47 – Debunking the claim that Washington exaggerates threats for the sake of increasing the defense budget 35:49 – The role of media and Congress in the lead-up to the Iraq war 40:49 – The difference between effective policymaking and policy negligence: assessing the Bush and Biden administrations   47:29 – Adapting the liberal “rules-based international order” to reflect contemporary realities   52:27 – The shortcomings of a reductionist “democracy vs. authoritarianism” foreign policy A full transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations: Mike: Mr. X and the Pacific by Paul Heer; The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment by Geoffrey Kabaservice Kaiser: Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We've got a special bonus episode this week on the protests over the weekend of November 26th-27th in multiple cities around China. Joining Kaiser and Jeremy are old friends David Moser and Jeremiah Jenne, co-hosts of the Barbarians at the Gate podcast, who have 50 years in Beijing between them. David Moser is a linguist, academic administrator, and accomplished jazz pianist and composer. Jeremiah Jenne is a writer and historian. Both David and Jeremiah are still in Beijing, and they offer an on-the-ground account of what happened and what it all means. A transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. Recommendations –  Jeremy: The Twitter account 李老师不是你老师 (Lǐ lǎoshī bùshì nǐ lǎoshī), with the handle @whyyoutouzhele; Cindy Yu’s Twitter account @CindyXiaodanYu Jeremiah: Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China by Ruth Rogaski David: The Globe and Mail article “In rare show of weakness, China's censors struggle to keep up with zero COVID protests” by James Griffith; Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language by James Griffith Kaiser: Happiness is 4 Million Pounds, a New York Times documentary by Hao Wu See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser & Jeremy welcome Yuan Yang, a reporter for the Financial Times who was until recently covering technology in Beijing. Now based in London, her beat is China-Europe relations, and on this episode she discusses German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's recent trip to China, and how Europe and European countries are navigating the fraught U.S.-China relationship. 6:09 – Providing a balanced account of China’s tech ecosystem     9:38 – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's recent trip to Beijing 16:00 – The strategic autonomy of European foreign policy 18:41 – European countries’ fractured response to US tech restrictions on China 21:58 – EU policies towards Xinjiang  24:31 – The impact of tech restrictions on European supply chains 27:39 – The efficacy of sanctions 30:12 – How China’s position on Russia damaged its reputation in Europe 33:48 – European reaction to Biden-Xi meeting 35:57 – How a change in the American presidency could disrupt the Transatlantic alliance system 40:55 – The formulation of Sunak’s China policy   43:50 – Yuan’s new forthcoming book Private Revolutions   A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com Jeremy: Jewish comedian Ari Shaffir Yuan: The Emily Wells album Regards to the End; The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin Kaiser: mongulai.com, an e-commerce website specializing in Mongolian artisanal crafts; the Netflix show Barbarians See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, in lieu of the regular show we present a keynote address given by Evan Feigenbaum, VP for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, at the recent East Asia Strategy Forum, held on November 1-2 in Ottawa, Canada. The forum is put on annually by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada — APF Canada — and by the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy. The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada is a not-for-profit organization focused on Canada’s relations with Asia. Its mission is to be Canada’s catalyst for engagement with Asia and Asia’s bridge to Canada. The Institute for Peace & Diplomacy (IPD) is non-profit and non-partisan international affairs think tank operating in the United States and Canada dedicated to promoting dialogue, diplomacy, prudent realism, and military restraint. The event's moderator was Jeff Nankivell, CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada or APF Canada. Jeff was the Consul General to HK before taking his post at APF Canada. Kaiser also offers his quick take on the three-hour meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden in Bali, Indonesia. 3:23 – Kaiser’s analysis of the recent Biden and Xi Meeting  10:19 – Start of Evan Feigenbaum's speech  13:26 – The tension between economic and security interests in the Indo-Pacific  20:06 – The tension between coalition-building and fragmentation in the Indo-Pacific   24:02 – The American approach to strategic competition with China in the region  32:34 – Question 1: What role can American allies play in setting a positive agenda? 37:54 – Question 2: Do American national security issues have a tendency to get distorted by domestic political and economic considerations? 51:34 – Question 3: Given domestic political constraints, is there any chance of diminishing the bipartisan consensus against China? 54:29 – Question 4: Is there a conflict between the ‘rules-based international order’ and implementing targeted restrictions towards China? 57:17 – Question 5: How sustainable is China’s position on the Russia-Ukraine war? A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.