Sinica Podcast

China's most famous Canadian, Mark Rowswell, became famous — or at least "feimerse" — after appearing in the Spring Festival Gala on CCTV in 1990. In recent years, he's pioneered a hybrid between the xiangsheng (相声 xiàngsheng; crosstalk) for which he's known and Western-style stand-up comedy. Mark joined Anthony Tao and David Moser at the storied Bookworm on the final night of the Bookworm Literary Festival on March 30 to talk about the Chinese language, comedy, and the difficulties of Chinese soft power. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 11:51: Learning Chinese is difficult — however, the specific types of difficulties that individuals are presented with often vary widely. Ethnically Chinese people are often held to a higher linguistic standard than their Caucasian counterparts, whereas foreigners who speak Chinese have become less of a rarity — and consequently less professionally valuable — in recent years. Mark explains: “I’ve had friends say, ‘You know the Chinese respect the ugly American. They don’t respect the sensitive, understanding Chinese-speaking foreigner. They like foreigners to be foreign.’” 29:22: Dīng Guǎngquán 丁广泉, a late titan of the Chinese comedy world, was one of Mark and David’s mentors. Non-judgmental and highly attentive to his disciples’ strong and weak points (he once wrote a scene describing David as muddle-headed and forgetful), he created a platform for many foreigners to enter the world of performance in Chinese. Mark states: “For us, it was very much a partnership, because he wasn’t all that well known in China, either. I had the name, the image, the fame that brought these opportunities to perform, but he was the guy who knew how to do it. I wouldn’t know how to do this by myself. That had a huge impact on me.” 32:43: “Your Chinese is so good!” A woman had overheard Mark telling Anthony the name of a restaurant in Chinese and promptly complimented him. According to Mark, the reactions he gets when speaking Chinese with shopkeepers or taxi drivers hasn’t changed much in 20 years, pushing back on the idea that the novelty of foreigners speaking Chinese has faded. David quips, “What does that tell you? That Chinese is very hard to learn.” “Well,” Mark contests, “we still do a bad job of it.” 44:04: Is the difficulty of the Chinese language a hindrance on China’s ability to export soft power? Mark explains: “First of all, the Chinese state sort of organizes everything so it has to be an official program. And secondly, Chinese people, I think, just tend to tense up when they sense that they’re dealing with foreigners — they have to be careful about what they say, and they’re a ‘representative of China,’ you know, they have this huge emotional burden that they bring to it. I think that’s the main problem China has with soft power: They don’t let their people express that power.” Recommendations: David: Recommends investigating books by Earnshaw Books, a Hong Kong–based publishing house, founded by Graham Earnshaw. Graham’s music can also be found online on his Bandcamp page. Mark: Thirteen Invitations (十三邀 shísān yāo), by Xǔ Zhīyuǎn 许知远, a video series that can be found on Tencent Video here. Anthony: The website What’s on Weibo, the Beijing Invitational Craft Beer Festival, hosted by Great Leap, and The Last Tribe on Earth, by Liane Halton and Anthony Tao.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is the ongoing anti-corruption drive a sincere effort to root out official wrongdoing? Or is it a political purge of the enemies of Xí Jìnpíng 习近平? These questions have been hotly debated since the outset of the campaign in 2013. Now Peter Lorentzen of the University of San Francisco and Xi Lu of the National University of Singapore have harnessed data to examine the anti-corruption drive in the hopes of settling the question. Kaiser sat down with Peter on the sidelines of the recent Association for Asian Studies Conference to talk about the findings in their paper, “Personal Ties, Meritocracy, and China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign.” What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 22:57: Of the many officials that have been purged since 2012, “three big tigers” in particular stand out: Sū Róng 苏荣, Líng Jìhuà 令计划, and Zhōu Yǒngkāng 周永康. Of the provinces Xi Lu and Peter analyzed, economic performance was a large contributing factor for official promotion except for Jiangxi, Shanxi, and Sichuan. Here, Peter provides background on these three officials, their downfall, and the “tiger territories” they previously oversaw. 30:34: In 2012, Bó Xīlái 薄熙来 was considered one of the main contenders to challenge Xi Jinping’s ascent to power. His association with the murder of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, reportedly ordered by his wife, brought a swift end to his political success. However, Peter was surprised by what he found regarding his political network in the aftermath: “If you rank people using the Google PageRank algorithm, you find Bo Xilai was below 20th. What that means, in practice, is that in our data there were not many people reported as being his cronies who were subordinate to him compared to a lot of other people.” 32:42: What does the inability of Politburo Standing Committee members to protect their personal networks say about the current political climate in China? Peter: “Even when you clump all other six Politburo [Standing Committee] members together, we didn’t see a sort of protective effect. Their associates, people we believed to be connected with them, were just as likely to go down as anyone else. So the question is: Why were they not able to protect their people?... This is not something we can observe directly in our data, but my sense is that it does show the demise of the collective leadership, first-among-equals approach.” 39:26: How many people have been subject to the corruption crackdown? Peter studied those who were investigated, whose names were published in reports by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection by 2015. “We’re looking at the first wave of the crackdown, but that was just a thousand people [whose names we could get]. I was looking at some estimates last night, and I think people are saying that the total number as of the end of last year was 20,000 to 30,000 people overall. And you know, they’re not all people who looked wrong at Xi Jinping some day. So it’s pretty clear that he’s got to have some other way of deciding who goes down.” Recommendations: Peter: Two sitcoms, Speechless (available on ABC) and Kim’s Convenience (available on Netflix). Kaiser: Two playlists on Spotify, “Instrumental Madness” and “Got Djent?”This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kaiser sat down with Nury Turkel, chairman and founder of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, at the recent Association for Asian Studies conference in Denver for an impromptu catch-up on the current crisis in Xinjiang. Nury last appeared on the Sinica Podcast half a year ago. They discussed the policy options available to the U.S. as well as the difficulties of trying to get through to Chinese elites and ordinary Chinese people alike. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 2:31: The conversation begins with a recap of vote counts and support behind bipartisan bills that are currently working through the U.S. Congress: the Uighur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response (UIGHUR Act) and the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act. Nury says that there could be more news on these bills in the coming months: “We were told that there’s a chance that [the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act] will be finalized…sometime this summer.” 6:44: Nury calls for a larger international coalition to decry the horrors in Xinjiang, and highlight the shadow that Uyghur internment will cast on the longer history of China, stating, “In the end, we want two things. One, we want the camps to be shut down. It’s an embarrassment to the Chinese people, even in their history. It needs to be shut down. And, two, we want to be able to restore the Uyghur people’s basic dignity. Give them their dignity and respect back.” 17:48: After reporting emerged on the supposed death of famed Uyghur musician Abdurehim Heyit, Beijing pushed back with a dubious “proof of life” video. This has resulted in a social media movement to raise awareness about the horrors being committed in Xinjiang, #MeTooUyghur. Nury comments: “So, this #MeTooUyghur movement is building up still. What is amazing about this is that a lot of Uyghurs who were not comfortable sharing their stories are coming out. So, the more people show up and come out telling their stories, the more people know about it. Eventually, it will result in some tangible action.” 27:12: The Uyghurs’ ongoing internment has taken a heavy toll on them. Nury explains: “The Uyghur communities around the world [are] going through a really tough time. Crippling anxiety, a sense of guilt, hopelessness…basically [making] the Uyghurs feel disconnected from their family members. Just basic things, such as calling your parents to say, ‘How are you?’ Just imagine that you hear your mother died in a concentration camp through Radio Free Asia. Just imagine that you recognize your children in the Chinese government propaganda material as a happy child…just imagine that you manage to go to your homeland and you are not able to see your sister because your iris was not scanned or [not] part of the government data. Just imagine that you walk out and try to go to your parents’ cemetery and the Chinese government prevents you because of your religion.” 39:58: How can individuals reach out and help sympathetic Han Chinese who are in China and willing to make a stand for the Uyghurs in Xinjiang? Nury underlines the high stakes involved, not only for the Uyghurs, but for all of China: “At least recognizing that what the Chinese government is doing in the 21st century, criminalizing the entire population [of Uyghurs] collectively, is not good for Chinese civilization.”This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This live Sinica Podcast recorded in New York on March 6 features Samm Sacks, Cybersecurity Policy and China Digital Economy Fellow at New America. She and Kaiser Kuo discuss the many facets of U.S.-China technology integration and competition, touching on topics such as data security, artificial intelligence, and how to build “a small yard with a high fence.” What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 11:04: Decoupling is a theme that has defined one of the more extreme potential outcomes of the fraying U.S.-China relationship. Are these conversations prevalent outside of Washington? What about the Silicon Valley tech community? Samm addresses these questions here, among others: “The reality is when we think about technology development, whether it’s joint research, supply chains, collaboration of sciences — these things don’t really map nicely onto political borders. And these are really diffuse networks that, when you try to decouple [them], there’s just a disconnect here.” 21:13:What is the relationship between technology companies and the Communist Party? What impact does China’s Cybersecurity and National Intelligence Law have on the companies’ supposed obligations to cooperate with authorities on sharing private data? When two passengers using Didi, a popular ride-share service in China, were killed, the company cooperated reluctantly, resulting in a bizarre legal limbo. Samm explains: “Chinese legal scholars were saying, wait a second, if Didi is to fall in line on this data-sharing agreement, that’s a violation of China’s Cybersecurity Law, because the Cybersecurity Law has a framework around the conditions where data is collected and shared. So again I think there’s a lot more churn than people understand.” 27:46: What is important data? China’s Cybersecurity Law has outlined broad data localization requirements. Does the government have the ability (or capability) to review the huge amounts of data going in and out of the country? Samm points out: “One of the outcomes I would look for if we were to see the so-called structural issues on the tech side, one would be is the Chinese government going to agree to allow more kinds of commercial data out of the country without these arduous security audits?” 34:41: Is China deliberately exporting its model of censorship to governments and countries throughout the world? What of the future of domestic surveillance in China? Who is discussing the ethical and legal implications of artificial intelligence being brought into everyday life and society, and where? Samm attended a Track 2 dialogue between Berkeley Law and Beijing University Law and discusses the conversations in the academic world regarding algorithmic bias, and contesting decisions made by artificial intelligence here. 40:58: Samm elaborates on the concept of “small yard and high fence.” What are some actionable items in the technological tussle unfolding between Washington and Beijing? She provides her guiding principle: “Having a constructive bilateral trade and investment relationship with China, particularly with technology, is in the interest of the United States. And we cannot take an approach that is going to use blanket bans and discrimination based on national origin. We need to use tools like law enforcement as the scalpel they were intended to be because of the integration of our two systems. Otherwise, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot.” Recommendations: Kaiser: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James C. Scott. Samm: Catastrophe, a British sitcom available on Prime Video.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.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 the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by Eric Olander, host of the China in Africa Podcast from the China Africa Project, and by Anzetse Were, a developmental economist based in Nairobi. They explore questions related to Kenyan debt and development, as well as Sino-American competition in East Africa. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 10:33: When did China begin to put concerted diplomatic effort into relations with African countries? What were the optics of China’s push into the African continent? Anzetse highlights three examples that led to China’s success in dealing with businesses and governments: “[Chinese diplomats] are quite humble in their articulation, certainly to African people, saying, ‘While this has been the Chinese experience, we don’t know what you want, what you can learn and what you don’t want to learn.’ So they’re not prescriptive. But of course the biggest thing that African governments like is that they don’t lecture about anything.” 19:05: Is China leading African countries into “debt traps”? What are the primary causes for concern regarding the debts of African governments, and the wider international community? Anzetse explains that it’s a confluence of factors, including transparency issues and the effects of kindling trade relationships with new partners: “There is concern in the global north, particularly Europe and North America, as to reexposure in African governments to debt…and their concern is that they’re doing it with a party that the world does not really understand in terms of how it deals with debt defaults and how it deals with repayments owed. I think that Europe and North America were much more comfortable when debt owed was in their hands, obviously because they had [control], but I think because they had a common understanding on how this would be addressed. They do not know how the Chinese are going to do this.” 42:21: America is restructuring the way it provides aid to the rest of the world through the International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) and the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development Act (BUILD Act), in an attempt to compete with China in the developing world. How effective is this restructuring? Eric provides some insight: “It’s not challenging China at all. It’s not intended to challenge China. Instead, they actually complement each other very, very well. So, a country like Kenya can turn to China for infrastructure and massive loans from the Chinese for a public sector type of development. But then, IDFC and the U.S. come in to fund American business and Kenyan business that can’t get funding anywhere else.” 49:36: What effect is the Belt and Road Initiative having in Africa? What about the African countries that are excluded from the plans, as China has made inroads, for the most part, on Africa’s eastern seaboard? Anzetse states: “I think the Chinese began to understand, ‘We do not want to start dividing African sentiments on China, we’re going to find a way to make sure all the regions in Africa are represented in this Belt and Road Initiative. Whether it will be practical is not clear.” Recommendations: Jeremy: I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation and In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo, both by Michela Wrong. Eric: Competing against Chinese loans, U.S. companies face long odds in Africa, an article in the New York Times by Ed Wong. Anzetse: Rhinocéros, by Eugène Ionesco. Kaiser: Lake Success: A Novel, by Gary Shteyngart.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week’s Sinica was recorded at UPenn’s Center for Study on Contemporary China. Jeremy and Kaiser speak with three prominent scholars on China: Sheena Greitens, associate professor of political science at the University of Missouri, Rory Truex, assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, and Neysun Mahboubi, research scholar at the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania. The group tackles a topic that has long beleaguered China-watching circles: self-censorship. In addition, it focuses on a paper that Sheena and Rory published last summer, Repressive Experiences among China Scholars: New Evidence from Survey Data. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 22:41: Sheena describes the categories in which she and Rory organized “repressive experiences” in China, the center of their research, comprising 13 types of repression divided into three buckets: “The three broad categories that we looked at were restrictions on access to China itself, restriction on access to materials once you’re in China doing research, and monitoring and surveillance of that research by authorities in China.” According to their research, 20-25 percent of those interviewed had difficulty accessing archived materials, and 10 percent of visiting China scholars had been “invited” by authorities to speak with them and explain their research. When Chinese colleagues and interlocutors at host institutions are included in the sample, the figure jumps to 15 percent. 29:45: Rory’s hypothesis going into this project was that there would be a spike in repressive experiences and research after Xi Jinping’s ascent to power in 2012. Perceptions certainly trend in that direction. However, data from their research didn’t reveal major temporal trends related to these repressive experiences, with one caveat: “I talk to people who do a lot of fieldwork, and they say it’s actually much harder even to have interviews at all anymore. The one thing where there was a temporal trend was access to archives. If you talk to historians, they’ll talk a lot about how the archives are being sanitized, and projects, books, and dissertations that were feasible 10 or 15 years ago are no longer feasible today.” 48:05: What exactly is self-censorship? Neysun, Sheena, and Rory all take slightly differing views on what characterizes it. Rory discusses the calculus behind self-censorship, and identifies external stimuli that may have an impact on research and published materials in the United States: “We might be at the opposite [point of the problem], where the professional incentives [of researching contentious topics], plus the political environment in the United States are such that saying anything positive, or even neutral about the Communist Party is difficult to do, and difficult to publish.” 1:08:59: What role do China-watchers play in the larger conversation that, in the modern era, seems to be undergoing constant recalibration? What of the dichotomy among China-watchers, à la hawks versus doves? Here, Neysun, Sheena, and Rory all offer insight into these questions and suggestions on the way forward. Recommendations: Jeremy: Two jazz albums, Live at the Pershing, by Ahmad Jamal, a live recording from 1958, and Money Jungle, a studio album by Duke Ellington. Neysun: Evening Chats in Beijing: Probing China’s Predicament, by Perry Link. Sheena: Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westwood, and Harry and the Terrible Whatzit, by Dick Gackenbach. Rory: The website www.chinachange.org, a website that provides reports, commentary, and analysis on human rights in China. Kaiser: Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, by Sulmaan Wasif Khan.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.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 feature the second half of an extensive interview (first part here) with Shelley Rigger, a political scientist at Davidson College and the leading U.S. expert on the politics of Taiwan. This second half of the interview, which covers the history of Taiwan from the 1990s to the present, was conducted by Neysun Mahboubi of the UPenn Center for the Study of Contemporary China Podcast (one of our favorite China podcasts), and is republished here with the Center’s permission. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 3:39: Shelley and Neysun discuss the nature of the relationship between Taiwan and China in the early 1990s, with identify the opponents and proponents of unification with the mainland. Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國 Jiǎng Jīng-guó, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, who succeeded his father as premier) allowed for veterans of the Chinese civil war to return to the mainland on humanitarian visits. These veterans were accompanied by their children, who saw economic opportunities on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. Shelley: “They get off the plane, and what Dad sees is, ‘I don’t recognize my hometown.’ What the son or son-in-law sees is, ‘This is perfect for my business.’” 17:55: What is it about Taiwanese independence that makes it such a contentious topic for officials in Beijing? What has been the result of the social, economic, and cultural interactions between Taiwan and the mainland since the 1990s? What role did Taiwanese investment in China play in the ’90s, and what about Chinese investment in Taiwan in the 21st century? Shelley and Neysun, Taiwan and China scholars respectively, talk through these questions. 33:49: Are there red lines in Beijing on the topic of Taiwanese independence? What are the primary points of inflection and contention in the relationship? What effect does a U.S. presence in Taiwan have on the Taiwan-P.R.C. relationship? Shelley explains: “Are we going to remind Beijing that we are in it in that way, and that in some sense the inability to solve this problem [of independence] that they have chosen for themselves is our fault? Are we going to put that right up in their faces, or are we going to say, ‘Taiwan is okay. We’re okay. We don’t need to, as my dad says, kick the skunk.’” 38:51: What about the U.S.-Taiwan relationship under the current U.S. administration? The phone call between Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文 Cài Yīng-wén) and then president-elect Trump, which was intended to be private, certainly strained the relationship after being picked up by international media and tweets by Trump blaming Taiwan for the ensuing debacle that unfolded. Shelley: “The other thing about this administration that’s especially worrisome from the Taiwan perspective is that it’s very unpredictable, as you said, and so the possibility that Taiwan could be a bargaining chip or introduced into some transaction is ever-present…” 51:58: Taiwanese identity, and its role in the world, has undergone seismic changes throughout its history. Shelley points out that the discussion within the island nation has somewhat settled, but not without certain reservations: “The debate over identity that was raging in Taiwan in the 1990s and 2000s is pretty settled on the idea that, with the exception of the indigenous peoples and the ever-growing number of immigrants to Taiwan, our roots are in China…but that does not need to define us politically, and our community, the community of shared fate or common destiny that we belong to as Taiwanese, is specific to this island…”This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.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 feature the first half of an extensive interview with Shelley Rigger, a political scientist at Davidson College and the leading U.S. expert on the politics of Taiwan. This first half of the interview, which covers the history of Taiwan through 1996, was conducted by Neysun Mahboubi of the UPenn Center for the Study of Contemporary China Podcast (one of our favorite China podcasts), and is republished here with the Center’s permission. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 11:05: What was Taiwan’s status in the global world order before the normalization of U.S.-China relations, and in what direction did that status shift after 1978? How did this event help shape Taiwanese identity? Shelley begins the podcast by describing the importance of the history of the island nation. 15:00: After Taiwan was handed over to the Republic of China in 1945, the Chinese civil war continued on the Chinese mainland. Because the Nationalists’ efforts were primarily focused on defending the mainland, Taiwan became a “troublesome backwater” to the larger battle being fought across the Taiwan Strait. Shelley describes this post–World War II period in Taiwan: “The Nationalists are fighting hard to save the heartland of China, and so Taiwan became a kind of ‘troublesome backwater,’ a sideshow. But for the people of Taiwan to realize they had become this kind of sideshow and that their island was supposed to be kind of a platform from which the Nationalists could prosecute this other war, and could achieve their real goal, that was kind of shocking.” 24:05: When the Nationalists fled mainland China to Taiwan in 1949, they brought with them many officials who were elected two years previously on the mainland to “repopulate the legislature.” Shelley states: “Those people, those individuals, retained their seats from 1947 to 1991 because the logic went: ‘We can’t replace these guys until we can have an election back in their home district in Hubei, or Xinjiang, or wherever, so they have to just keep their seats.’” 39:35: From the 1970s onward, there were big changes in the Taiwanese psyche for a number of reasons. Taiwan had lost its seat at the UN Security Council, and Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger had canceled a mutual defense treaty with the Republic of China. Some thought the island nation was soon to be nonexistent. Shelley argues that it was instead liberating: “It released Taiwan from the necessity to pretend to be China, and it opened the door to reimagining Taiwan in a new way. So the obligation of the Taiwanese people and even Taiwan as a physical geographical space to subjugate itself to the destiny of China is gone…” This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Sinica is live from Fordham Law School in New York City! This episode features Zhā Jiànyīng 查建英, journalist and author of China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids, and Bestsellers Are Transforming a Culture and Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China, who joined Jeremy and Kaiser at a Sinica Live Podcast event on January 14. The three discuss the experiences of Zha’s half-brother, Zhā Jiànguó 查建国, a democracy activist in China who was charged with subversion of state power and subsequently jailed for nine years. In addition, they pore over the political realities of contemporary China, the likelihood of reform, and the pressures that “moderate liberals” encounter in the face of rising suppression of political freedoms in the country. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 3:34: In the era of “stability maintenance” in China, netizens have coined unique nicknames for actions that censorship and security officials take to maintain order. “To be harmonized” (被和谐 bèihéxié), or to have speech censored, is the most well known, but there are many others. “To be touristed” (被旅游 bèi lǚyóu), or sent packing on a mandatory vacation accompanied by friendly police officers, is the subject of Zha’s writing, in this case. Zha elaborates: “I think this is a very eerie kind of symptom of the police state moving, in fact, you might say a little more sophisticated way of silencing or [getting] rid of those troublemakers in different spheres, right? Some of them are Party officials, others are critics like petitioners, NGO activists, or civil rights lawyers.” 18:24: Jeremy asks if Zha has ever been concerned whether her work as a journalist could potentially put her brother in danger. She says no, but adds that she intentionally kept him in the dark when writing her 2007 piece “Enemy of the State,” which was featured in The New Yorker, to protect him. Zha: “Still, the one point I did insist on was to not have the famous New Yorker fact-checkers call him beforehand because I knew all his phones and everything was tapped and monitored. And so I didn’t tell him I was writing this.” 29:58: Zha and Kaiser talk about political dissidents and activists. According to Zha, some of them endorse unfortunate and dated ideologies: “I don’t know, I used to think of them as liberals. Now I think maybe they need a different hat or label, you know — they’re sexist, because some of them in more recent phenomena really had a lot of trouble with #MeToo. The movement had kind of a short play in China…and there’s lots of people who have trouble with Islamic culture as well.” 32:17: High-profile Chinese dissidents and activists on a growing number of “sensitive” dates are often “touristed” for weeks on end. However, there is one caveat: No cell phones are allowed. Zha elaborates: “Back then, there were just these certain anniversaries or Party congresses. But now, China has emerged into this global powerhouse. So all kinds of global forums that are held in Beijing or in Qingdao or in Shanghai have also become sensitive days. And so, in such locations, the police would usually take selective numbers of ‘troublemakers’ out of the site of that city.” 57:53: Kaiser asks Zha about the modern Chinese intelligentsia: What role do Chinese intellectuals play in the political life of a country? Is their role understood in circles outside of China scholars? She responds, “Basically, the intellectuals played a very particular, important role of advising the emperor then, and now the leaders about the direction of the country, or they also are seen as the spokespeople for the common people…so they’re given this special kind of status or platform to govern or change the society. So that’s why this whole crackdown, right now, this whole ruthless crackdown on the intellectuals by stripping or removing platforms for their voices is so disturbing and casts such a chilling effect.” Recommendations: Jeremy: Red Moon, by Kim Stanley Robinson, an interstellar work of speculative fiction. Zha: The Ceremony 大典, by Wáng Lìxióng 王力雄. Also a podcast, The History of Rome, by Mike Duncan. Kaiser: A Beijing-based band called The Spice Cabinet.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.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 launch the Middle Earth podcast, which discusses China’s culture industry. In this debut episode on the Sinica Network, host Aladin Farré chats with three individuals who have all hit the big time and become internet celebrities in China: Erman, whose musings on love and relationships turned into a viral success and a full-time job; Ben Johnson, an Australian English teacher, whose short videos on cultural differences have attracted millions of views and 3 million followers; and Tang Yiqing, who started Juzi Video and has a venture-backed company with 30 million young fans. Learn their secrets for how to become a wanghong (网红 wǎnghóng; internet celebrity)! Subscribe to Middle Earth on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Stitcher, or plug the RSS feed into your favorite podcast app.This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.