Sinica Podcast

Eleanor Goodman, poet, scholar, and noted translator of contemporary Chinese poetry, discusses Zheng Xiaoqiong, a Sichuan-born factory worker turned influential poet. They explore how they met, Zheng's move from assembly line to literary recognition, her resistance to being labeled a migrant-worker writer, bodily feminism in her verse, and the ethics and craft of translating factory-specific voices.

Selina Xu — AI policy lead focused on international cooperation. Mieke Eoyang — cyber policy veteran and defense technologist. Jeff Ding — scholar framing AI competition as a diffusion marathon. Samm Sacks — researcher on Chinese tech, data, and trust. They debate whether 'rivalry' fits U.S.-China tech relations. They discuss supply-chain costs, cybersecurity reciprocity, open-source and standards, and competing on trust, talent, and norms.

Mario Esteban Rodríguez, a professor and director of the Autonomous University of Madrid’s Center for East Asian Studies, analyzes Spain’s evolving ties with China. He discusses Sánchez’s pragmatic China strategy, domestic politics shaping foreign policy, trade imbalances and sectoral pressures like EVs and pork, the Chery plant in Barcelona, and Spain’s potential role as a gateway to Latin America.

Leslie Vinjamuri, pollster and CEO highlighting changing U.S. attitudes toward China. Jonas Nahm, SAIS professor reframing economic competition into concrete buckets. Katherine Thompson, former Pentagon staffer assessing military trade-offs for Indo-Pacific deterrence. Matt Duss, progressive foreign policy commentator arguing the U.S. lacks a coherent China strategy. They debate public opinion shifts, strategic trade-offs, practical economic competition, and allied burdens.

Shao Yuqun, Shanghai policy director on Taiwan/HK/Macau; Dan Taylor, former U.S. China analyst; Arthur Kroeber, China economy expert; Jessica Chen Weiss, Johns Hopkins China scholar. They debate what China actually wants: sovereignty, security, development, and freedom of action. Conversations cover economic tools, deterrence vs coercion, summit expectations, tech tensions like AI chips, and China’s global networking strategies.

Adam Tooze, economic historian and Columbia professor known for work on global political economy and the energy transition, returns from Beijing to discuss China’s 15th Five-Year Plan and whether it signals a move away from investment-led growth. He explores China’s massive renewables buildout, the idea of a “big green state,” Western recalibrations captured by “Chinamaxxing,” and China’s influence on the Global South’s energy future.

Chang Che, journalist who tracked China’s renewed fascination with Greco-Roman classics. He discusses grassroots love for the Odyssey, the shift from independent scholars to state-backed programs, Xi’s outreach to Greece and its geopolitical meaning, and the role of Straussian thought and institutional politics in shaping China’s classics revival.

David M. Lampton, a leading U.S. scholar of China and emeritus director of China Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS, discusses a joint essay calling for urgent restraint. He covers why the collaboration mattered. He warns about accidental war from miscalculation, explains securitization and economic frictions, and argues Taiwan could be the unlikely starting point for stabilizing relations.

Ting Luo, associate professor of government and AI who studies digital governance, and Daniela Stockmann, professor of digital governance focused on platforms and state power, discuss how states, major platforms, and ordinary users interact in China. They introduce "popular corporatism," explain platform leverage over censorship, survey methods like GPS sampling, the social credit system's two subsystems, and why lurkers matter.

Yi-Ling Liu, journalist and author of The Wall Dancers, maps Chinese online life through vivid personal stories. She explores the metaphor of “dancing in shackles,” early netizen optimism, hip hop and sci‑fi’s rise and co‑optation, feminist activism and crackdowns, and how censorship and moderation became human and industrial. Short scenes show creativity and constraint colliding in China’s digital sphere.