Sinica Podcast

This week on the Sinica Podcast, Jeremy and Kaiser speak with Tashi Rabgey, research professor of international affairs at George Washington University and director of the Tibet Governance Project. They are joined by returning guest Jim Millward, professor of history at Georgetown University and renowned scholar of Xinjiang and Central Asia. This episode focuses on their respective areas of expertise: human rights violations in the Xinjiang region; the P.R.C. approach to ethnic policies in Tibet and Xinjiang, referred to on this show as minzu (民族 mínzú) policy; and the assimilation and securitization of both regions. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 5:40: Jim gives an update on the disturbing conditions in Xinjiang: “We’re seeing more and more work facilities, or factories, in these camps. Recent reporting has revealed that this has become a serious part of what the camps are doing. That once these people ‘graduate’ from learning Chinese and sort of move on, they’re put to work in some kind of facilities, making textiles, shoes, some packaging, electronics, assembly, those kind of things, for a period of time we don’t know about.” 11:50: Tashi describes heightened levels of security in Tibet: “There’s a lot of contradictory practices being put into place that are hard to explain, really. And so, increasingly, I think the surveillance, through many different means, is higher than ever before in history, even just to circumambulate around the Potala Palace, for example. Local Tibetans talk about that [it’s harder to get into than an airport].” 13:07: Tashi explains the burden that is created by using self-immolation as a political tool: “I think what’s really significant is how this has sat with the Tibetan people, and I think there’s a kind of silent mourning going on. Whether or not it’s being covered in the media, it really sits on people’s conscience — the fact that it is not something narrowly limited to monks and nuns. In particular, I’d point out that during the 18th Party Congress, where we saw the change in power, there were 28 self-immolations. That’s pretty much one every day.” 24:15: In the ongoing debate surrounding minzu policy, a second-generation minzu policy (第二代民族政策 dì èr dài mínzú zhèngcè) has emerged among Chinese thought leaders, pushed by Peking University professor Mǎ Róng 马戎. His solution of depoliticization (去政治化 qù zhèngzhìhuà) was met with great pushback from ethnic minority academics and government officials, but with notable absences, which Tashi explains: “At the same time, they got massive pushback, especially led by shaoshu minzu [少数民族 shǎoshù mínzú; ethnic minority] intellectuals, Hui and Inner Mongolians, for example. You know who didn’t push back, generally speaking? Tibetans and the Uyghurs.” 43:34: Kaiser asks the two about the concept of territoriality. Jim cites the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, which spurred the creation of trade enclaves, treaty ports, and certain degrees of autonomy for merchants. However, in the modern era, things are very different, which Jim explains: “They are turning their back on these approaches, I would say, and chasing the will-o’-the-wisp of a homogeneous national identity, which doesn’t really exist. So I’m saying that China should look to its own traditions for creative ways of dealing with territoriality and sovereignty as a way of addressing the problems in Xinjiang and Tibet.” Recommendations: Jeremy: A retelling of John Milton’s Paradise Lost in the graphic novel version by Pablo Auladell. Tashi: Jinpa by Pema Tseden, a Tibetan-language film and recipient of Best Screenplay at the Venice International Film Festival. Jim: Post Reports by the Washington Post, a 20-minute podcast with stories drawn from the newspaper. Kaiser: Kaiser’s new favorite brand of rice, grown in the black soil of Heilongjiang Province, Fúlínmén dàohuāxiāng wǔchángdàmǐ 福临门稻花香五常大米.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, we’re live from the US-China Business Council’s Forecast 2019 Conference in Washington, D.C. This show was recorded on January 31 — the day (and hour) that Donald Trump met with China’s top official in charge of trade negotiations, Liu He. Kaiser and Jeremy spoke with Tim Stratford, the chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in the People's Republic of China, and with Craig Allen, the president of the US-China Business Council. Stratford has also headed the leading law firm Covington’s office in China for many years, while Allen has had a long career representing American economic interests at the Department of Commerce and in the State Department, most recently as the U.S. ambassador to Brunei. The wide-ranging conversation covers everything from technology policies to the structural changes that China is being asked to make to address U.S. complaints over unfair trade practices. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: “If you want a quiet life, don’t study China.” —Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, per Craig Allen 5:22: Tim offers an analogy to describe the U.S.-China competitive relationship: a football match with one side playing American style, the other playing English style. “So, think of a Chinese SOE as an American-style football player that’s protected — it can receive subsidies and it can receive other protections from the state and it’s competing against, say, an American company that’s out there to play English-style football — and you can see how there could be an injury.” 15:14: The foreign business community, previously a reliable ballast in the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China, has soured in recent years. According to Tim, results in the annual Business Climate Review conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in China were shocking, with 75 to 80 percent of its membership saying they feel less welcome than in the past. He explains: “There’s a credibility gap that still needs to be addressed, and I also think that a lot of things that have been offered up by the government have not really addressed the core structural issues we’ve been addressing.” 24:48: Is the Trump administration committed to technological decoupling? Craig notes: “There is a sense that seems to be shared between national security elites both in Beijing and in Washington — that both countries are too interdependent from a supply chain and technological perspective… It is clear that a lot of new thought is going into our export control plans and to our investment regimes, and it is very likely that the tightening up of both of those programs are going to have an effect on supply chains and innovation.” 30:48: To finish the live show, Tim and Craig do a bit of forecasting for the new year. Tim contends, “It’s going to take a little bit longer than just one year. I think it’s going to take three, four, or five years, even.” Craig emphasizes the relative health of the U.S. and Chinese economies, stating, “My hope is that both governments will both congeal around the rules that both have formally agreed to under the WTO and find common ground in the technology, trade, and investment space.” Recommendations: Jeremy: Civics study materials for the United States naturalization test, and Hello Gold Mountain, an original composition by Wu Fei for chamber orchestra, which tells the story of Jews who fled Europe for Shanghai after World War II. Craig: Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, by Francis Fukuyama. Tim: “Building a better deal with China,” by Scott Kennedy and Daniel H. Rosen. Kaiser: The Water Margin Podcast: Outlaws of the Marsh, by John Zhu, a retelling of one of the four classic Chinese novels in English.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 chat with two former ambassadors to the PRC who served during the years marking the transition from the Hu/Wen administration to the rule of Xi Jinping: Jorge Guajardo of Mexico and David Mulroney of Canada. They discuss the significant challenges that they faced, the perceptible changes in China's diplomatic norms and practices during their tenures as ambassadors, and, finally, the benefits and drawbacks that their countries see from the Trump administration's more assertive posture toward China. Note: This show was recorded on December 20, 2018, five weeks before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sacked Canada’s latest ambassador to China. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 9:35: Ambassadors Guajardo and Mulroney speak about their experiences during their tenures in Beijing. Mulroney describes a change he noticed during his time as head of the Asia branch of Canada’s Foreign Ministry: “Dealing with the Chinese had become different. In the past, if there was a difficult decision or a tough negotiation, even if you came out on the short end, the Chinese would leave you something… That changed, and I saw it change on my visit as ambassador, where it was zero sum where they were going to walk away and leave you with nothing.” 25:26: Jeremy asks the two diplomats about the United States pressuring other countries to join the growing coalition that is pushing back against China on trade, and domestic discussions in their respective countries. Mulroney responds: “There’s a great fear of being seen to gang up on China, or to form a coalition against China. And that has, I think, precluded the possibility of really honest discussions of how we deal with China one on one. China has been remarkably successful in isolating countries, even big countries, like Britain and France. Canada has certainly felt that...” 29:47: Guajardo comments on changes in the U.S.-Mexico relationship and the effects this has on the relationship between the U.S. and China: “During all administrations prior to President Trump’s, there was sort of an unwritten rule with Mexico that Mexico would do all that was possible to block Huawei from building its telecommunications infrastructure. That changed with President Trump.” 37:45: How far should governments go in getting tough on China? Is there a red line, and if so, where is it? Mulroney explains: “Canada right now is dealing with the detention of a couple of Canadians, and an icy-cold relationship with China…a constellation of issues, Iran sanctions, the extradition treaty with the U.S., detention of citizens, but they all have something in common at the base…the suggestion that China has been a free rider in so many respects. We’ve come to this point before. We wring our hands and then China is given a pass. The one thing that President Trump has been getting right is that maybe we don’t give China a pass.” Recommendations: Jeremy: An essay by James Meek in the London Review of Books, “The Club and the Mob,” about the destruction of news media. Jorge: Travel to Mexico City! An affordable vacation spot with many direct flights, which will be fairly empty during the upcoming Easter holidays. David: The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, by none other than Dorothy Day. Kaiser: The comedy TV series Patriot, available on Amazon 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 Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Ali Wyne, a policy analyst at the Rand Corporation, about the big picture in U.S.-China relations. Are we already in a cold war? Wyne gives a spirited argument that we're not — and makes the case that the interconnectedness between China and the U.S. can still serve as effective ballast in the relationship. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica: 5:13: Ali begins the conversation by elaborating on his argument against the use of a “cold war” trope in the modern U.S.-China context, which he wrote about in a conversation he spearheaded on ChinaFile. 13:27: Jeremy suggests alternatives to the cold war framing: “The decoupling? The freeze? The small ice age?” U.S.-China relations have undoubtedly shifted dramatically over the past two years, but how should China-watchers go about characterizing the shift? Kaiser, Jeremy, and Ali discuss, among other things, the November 2018 Hoover Institute publication, Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance. 22:58: Ali describes what could happen if further deterioration in U.S.-China relations occurs: “Decoupling is not a fait accompli…but what I worry about is that trade interdependence has been one of the few phenomena that has introduced some stability in a relationship between two countries that organically have little, if anything, in common. One of the few similarities between the United States and China, which actually amplifies their differences, is that both countries are convinced of their exceptionalism.” 33:27: Jeremy observes: “A few years ago, shortly after Xi Jinping came to power, Kaiser started calling it the 'new truculence,' which was a word we used on the show for many years, but it just doesn't seem right anymore because it's no longer 'new,' it's more like China has gone full honey badger and just doesn't give a f*** what the West thinks.” Jeremy and Ali discuss Beijing’s newfound confidence, and its potential geopolitical ramifications. 40:50: Ali cites an article by Samuel Huntington from the Winter 1988/89 edition of Foreign Affairs, The U.S. - decline or renewal?, where he urges the U.S. away from trying to “out-China China,” and encourages using this moment to push the U.S. to become a “more dynamic version of our best self.” Recommendations: Jeremy: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking, by Samin Nosrat. Particularly useful for returning expats from China who have forgotten how to cook. Kaiser: “What Donald Trump and Dick Cheney got wrong about America,” an article about American exceptionalism in The Atlantic. Ali: The November/December 2018 issue of Foreign Affairs, with essays focused on nuclear weapons, and Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony, by Kori Schake.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, Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Christina Larson, a science and technology reporter for the Associated Press, about a major story that her team broke: the Chinese scientist Hè Jiànkuí 贺建奎 announcement that he had edited the genes of embryos conceived in vitro, and that twin girls had been born, making them — if his claims are true — the world’s first gene-edited babies. We look at the overwhelmingly critical response to this announcement in the Chinese scientific community, among ordinary people, and among officials, as well as what this may mean for the ethical landscape in Chinese science. Please note that this show was taped in December 2018, and since then, He Jiankui has resurfaced, claiming that he’s doing just fine — so far. 15:20: The process by which He Jiankui conducted his research raised concerns throughout scientific circles worldwide. Christina was among a team of Associated Press reporters that spoke with the supposed founder of the hospital HarMoniCare, who allowed He to circumvent submitting his research to an ethical review board. “He told us, quite proudly, that he wasn’t a doctor or scientist, but a hospital property developer.” 24:34: The dodgy science behind a misguided experiment. Christina lists the litany of failures in He’s methodology, principal among them: the genes that were intended to be edited. “But there’s also evidence from the information Hè presented…that only half of the intended genes were edited in one of the two twins.” 31:10: When it comes to medicine, particularly ethically questionable experiments like the one He conducted last year, the stakes are higher. "So, ideally, scientists have peer review and ethical review boards, and technology companies have trade secrets and product launches in beta, because presumably the stakes are lower if it's a social media app. But things get messier in medicine when it's a life-or-death technology. You can't release something like that in beta." Recommendations: Jeremy: The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins, a gene-centered story of evolution. Christina: She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity, by Carl Zimmer, a book on genetic inheritance; also, a story by Christina’s colleagues at the Associated Press on tracing products made in Uyghur internment camps: US sportswear traced to factory in China’s internment camps. Kaiser: The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, by Jeff Guinn, a dispassionate story of the horrifically tragic story of Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre.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.

In this podcast, Samm Sacks and Paul Triolo discuss the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou and its implications on technological and national security issues. They delve into China's new Cybersecurity Law, Huawei's corporate culture, and concerns about the relationship between Huawei and the Chinese government. The podcast also explores national security concerns, the distinction between Huawei handsets and equipment in the core network, and the underlying factors driving the US-China confrontation.

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy speak with Julian Ku, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at Hofstra University. After the arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Mèng Wǎnzhōu 孟晚舟 in Vancouver at the behest of the U.S. Justice Department dominated international headlines in December 2018, U.S.-China relations have entered uncharted territory. The three convened to discuss the many legal aspects of her arrest and what this means for the bilateral relationship moving forward. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 7:54: Bank fraud, sanctions violations, or competition over 5G? All three? In response to Jeremy, Julian explains the strategy behind the decision to charge Meng with bank fraud and how this differs from the legal strategy in charging ZTE: “...as they did with ZTE, it’s actually much easier for the Commerce Department to just go after them on a civil standard and say you’re violating our sanctions laws and we’re just going to cut you off from the U.S. market. There’s no jury, there’s no trial, you don’t have to prosecute that person, and you don’t have to worry about the complications with extradition.” 20:15: What internal processes and parties were involved in this arrest? Julian explains how these extradition requests are generally handled as they work their way through various government offices. “It’s sort of like a bureaucratic process but with a little bit of wiggle room among the different departments so that you’re not putting a country in a bad position. So, I think Canada is supposed to have a little room to think about this, and I think ideally we gave them a chance to think about it and turn them down. But we obviously really wanted this to happen.” 34:24: Julian discusses the role that variable interest entities (VIEs) play in Chinese companies and the legal claims made by Meng and HSBC. “For tax purposes or for regulatory purposes, the law will sometimes allow companies to be structured in different ways...or for corporate governance purposes. Having said that, there [is] also a long tradition of what we call piercing the corporate veil in the United States. Which is, we say, ‘Look, we know technically it’s a separate corporation but because they commited a separate tort or crime, we’re just going to pierce the corporate structure and go straight to the shareholders and hold them accountable.’” Recommendations: Jeremy: Two Kinds of Time, by Graham Peck, with an introduction by Robert Kapp. A book of observations of China from the 1940s. Julian: Indonesia Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation, by Elizabeth Pisani. A 2014 memoir of a journalist from the U.K. in Indonesia. Kaiser: The instrumental progressive rock band Animals As Leaders, led by guitarist Tosin Abasi.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.

Jude Blanchette, the Senior Advisor and China Practice Lead at Crumpton Group’s China Practice, joins Kaiser and Jeremy for a live Sinica Podcast recording at Columbia University. Forty years after the policies of reform and opening up were adopted by the Communist Party of China, the three reflect on just how much the country has changed since 1978, and also restore figures like Zhào Zǐyáng 赵紫阳 and Hú Yàobāng 胡耀邦 to their proper place in the story of reform. Jude also talks about the conservative reaction to reform — the topic of his forthcoming book, Under the Red Flag: The Battle for the Soul of the Communist Party in a Reforming China. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 21:36: Jude discusses the roles of Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang in the context of reform in China: “I don’t know what any of you were doing when you were twelve, but [Hu Yaobang] joined his first revolution when he was twelve and ran away from home and joined the Communist Party when he was fourteen, and was one of the youngest members on the famed Long March.” 23:59: Zhao Ziyang’s central role as a reformer was often viewed as radical by many conservatives within the Party, particularly during his brief tenure as General Secretary after the ousting of Hu Yaobang. In 1987 he pushed for separation of the Party and the government (党政分开 dǎngzhèng fēnkāi), which was ultimately unsuccessful. “The Party is the owner of the restaurant, it can decide what’s on the menu, but the government is the chef in the back kitchen. It’s the one that is going to be actually making the dishes, we need to give them that latitude and leeway to do that.” 31:52: As China transitioned away from a reserved foreign policy of ‘hide and bide’ (韬光养晦 tāoguāng yǎnghuì) in the 1990s to more assertive approach of fènfā yǒuwéi (奋发有为). Jude elaborates on the transformation: “There’s also just the natural transition of a developing country to one becoming increasingly strong and articulating its own goals which diverge from that of the United States or other client states… we’re seeing now the full force of it coming out under Xi Jinping today. But I think the casting off of hide and bide, even as a cynical strategy we can see in retrospect was a catastrophic mistake by Xi Jinping.” 1:02:31: In the past few years, Deng Xiaoping has been written out of the history of Reform and Opening. Jude speculates on why: “As long as Deng Xiaoping and his legacy is around, that’s a cudgel that opponents can pick up… the more you allow the speeches of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang and Deng Xiaoping… speeches from Zhao Ziyang on political reform, speeches from Deng Xiaoping on separating the Party and the government. Basically, just Deng Xiaoping on [not having] a cult of leadership and how disastrous that is. Those are political weapons, so, clear them all away, get rid of them, burn the books.” Recommendations: Jude: Free Solo, a documentary of the climber Alex Honnold and his no-ropes climb up the 3,000-foot rock face of El Capitan. Kaiser: These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore, a historiographical account of the American experiment beginning in 1492. Jeremy: One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps by Andrea Pitzer. ---- From now until January 14, get a year of SupChina Access at 25% off for just $66!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, Jeremy and Kaiser are joined by Benjamin Shobert, who visited the Sinica South studio in Durham, North Carolina, for this episode. He is a senior manager at Healthcare NExT, a healthcare initiative of Microsoft, and leads strategy with national governments. The topic of discussion is his compelling book, Blaming China: It Might Feel Good but It Won’t Fix America’s Economy. The three discuss the taxonomy of dragon slayers and panda huggers, and some realities with which the world is now grappling: the rise of China, outcomes of globalization, the watershed moment of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and the impact it has had — and will continue to have — on the bilateral relationship between the United States and China. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 13:06: Ben talks about how, in 2016, traditional messaging by American politicians on the campaign trail in regard to China changed significantly: “...and to see [Mitt Romney] in the Rust Belt states talking quite vociferously about China as a near-peer threat and the source of economic anxieties…that was a signal.” 21:39: Ben explains the outsize role that the American Midwest has played in shaping the modern U.S.-China relationship: “Geographically, literally in parts of the American Midwest that matter to where this relationship goes, where there’s a realization that ‘China is not going to look like the way we thought, and I don’t know if we’re comfortable with that.’” 35:54: Ben reflects on the compatibility of views between “panda huggers” and “dragon slayers.” Is there any common ground between the two? “It’s almost as if this is a board game, and it’s not actual people making hard decisions in the context of different political systems, different cultures, different histories, and again the subtext for me in all of this is the United States during this modern global era has not been tending to its own knitting.” 37:24: “This is one of those conversations where if you get six people of both political persuasions in the same room, you’ll get more or less six people that agree: we need to invest more in infrastructure, we need to invest in healthcare and social spending, and yet, at the end of the day we didn’t do that. So we’re talking about China from this point of view of just extraordinary insecurity. Again, how much of that is because of what China has done? How much of that is because of things we haven’t?” Recommendations: Jeremy: Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America, by Beth Macy, a nonfiction book that charts the opioid crisis in the United States. Ben: Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town, by Brian Alexander, a story of Lancaster, Ohio, and the upheavals globalization brought to the community Kaiser: Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age, by Stephen R. Platt, plus its (exceptional) audiobook narration by Mark Deakens.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, Kaiser speaks with Charles Bedford, who has been the managing director since 2012 of The Nature Conservancy (TNC)’s Asia-Pacific region, which encompasses Asia, the Pacific Islands, Indonesia, and Australia. The organization focuses on solving incredibly pressing and paramount issues central to the health of our planet. TNC is a charitable environmental organization that focuses on bringing the “best available science” to decision makers in all levels of government and local communities both inside and outside of the United States. In this episode, Kaiser and Charles discuss the formation of the national parks system in China beginning nearly two decades ago in which Charles and TNC played an instrumental role; the promising Chinese ecotourism industry; hydropower in China; “sponge cities” and “green bonds”; environmental activism and philanthropy; and local Chinese environmental organizations. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 12:30: Charles on responsibly developing hydropower projects in Southeast Asia: “The problem with the way that we have developed the world’s rivers is that we’ve done it through a death of a thousand cuts. In a sense that if you do these things bit by bit and without looking at entire river systems, then you can essentially destroy the ecological diversity, the function of the river for people, the ability of the river to produce food, to produce silts that are nutritional for agricultural production.” 25:50: Kaiser and Charles discuss sponge cities: “What China’s done over the last few years is taken a pretty remarkable step to rebuild its city infrastructure across the whole country. This is a massive, national ‘sponge city’ program to go back in and figure out how to de-hardscape and put in bioswales [drainage receptacles].” 31:21: Does China get too much credit or too much blame on the environmental front? “The preponderance, I’m told, of civil disturbances, riots essentially, in China, are resulting from pollution. [They] derive from some type of local pollution or land use problem with the government. So China is not necessarily a democratic place where issues can turf themselves up and go through a political process, but there’s still an outlet for people to say this is wrong. And the great thing about this is the Chinese government is pretty much open to these kinds of [environmental] protests.” 37:42: Charles tells Kaiser about an interview he had with Jack Ma, in which Ma describes nearly drowning in a river as a child in his native Hangzhou. He also shares that he returned there years later, and things had changed — he would have been hard-pressed to drown in that same river because the water now only reached his ankles, and he wouldn’t want to swim in it because it was clearly polluted. Ma is a Global Board Member of The Nature Conservancy. Recommendations: Charles: Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize, by Sean C. Carroll, a book on World War II and the stories of Albert Camus and Jacques Monod. Kaiser: The Wizard and the Prophet, by Charles C. Mann, and a seven-part recording of a 1995 live show by the band Idiot Flesh. --- Check out the sponsor of this episode, Yoyo Chinese, by going to www.yoyochinese.com/sinica — be sure to enter the code Sinica at checkout to receive 15% off!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.