Sinica Early Access

This week on Sinica, Kaiser speaks with Michael Berry, translator of the Wuhan-based writer’s controversial Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City . Michael discusses Fangfang’s body of work and how her daily online posts made her — and him — a target for critics who’ve denounced the diary as an act of national betrayal and have even leveled threats against both the author and the transla...

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Bloomberg’s chief economist, Tom Orlik, about his new book, China: The Bubble That Never Pops . A longtime resident of Beijing, Tom wrote for the Wall Street Journal before joining Bloomberg as chief Asia economist. His book argues that Beijing's leaders have learned valuable lessons from their own history and from the experiences of other countries, and appl...

This week on Sinica, we continue with the ongoing California series of podcasts that Kaiser recorded last winter, and present a conversation taped in December, when he chatted with Margaret (Molly) Roberts, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. Molly also co-directs the China Data Lab at the 21st Century China Center, and her late...

This week, Kaiser and Jeremy speak with Michael Schuman, a reporter and writer who’s been covering China for 23 years, about his new book, Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World . The book sets out to present world history as China has understood it, and what that understanding of history tells us about what the China of today really wants. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com...

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Max Fisher, one of The Interpreter columnists for the New York Times, on what U.S. media coverage got right — and wrong — about the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, and the concerning parallels between 2002 and 2020. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In this second half of our interview with Kishore Mahbubani, a former UN ambassador of Singapore, he talks to Kaiser about the perils of American exceptionalism, the poverty of strategic thinking in Washington, and the view of U.S.-China competition from the rest of the world. His latest book, Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy , is a bracing read, unsparing in its criticisms...

In the first part of this two-part conversation, Kishore Mahbubani, a former UN ambassador of Singapore, returns to Sinica to chat with Kaiser about his latest book, Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy . It’s a bracing read, unsparing in its criticisms of Chinese and American strategic blunders, and its tough-love approach is sure to rankle. Part 2 will run next week. See Priv...

No, not that Gordon Chang. The other one: the good one. Gordon H. Chang is a professor of American history at Stanford University, where he is also the Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities and the senior associate vice provost for undergraduate education. In this prelapsarian podcast, taped on December 19, Gordon chats with Kaiser about the rising tide of Sinophobia — presaging things to come o...

A congressional bill and a draft executive order threaten to prevent U.S. government agencies from using drones made in China or that contain Chinese components. Concerns over security issues may end successful programs by the Department of the Interior and other agencies using Chinese-made drones for a huge range of purposes. Brendan Schulman, vice president for public policy and legal affairs of...

Literature professor and cineaste Jiwei Xiao, who grew up in Wuhan and whose mother still lives there, published a piece in the New York Review of Books about watching the coronavirus pandemic unfold — first at a familiar distance in Wuhan, then up close in the U.S., where she now resides. In this episode, Jiwei joins Kaiser and Jeremy to discuss her experiences. See Privacy Policy at https://art1...

For our 10th anniversary show, Kaiser and Jeremy recorded live on Zoom, sharing some reminiscences, reflecting on how China and the podcast have changed in the years since they started the show, and taking questions from listeners. A video version of the podcast will be available soon on SupChina.com . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.c...

In a show taped on March 2, before the full force of COVID-19 had hit the U.S., Kaiser and Jeremy chatted with Parsifal D'Sola Alvarado about China's strategy in the resource-rich but economically devastated Venezuela. Parsifal is a co-founder of the Andres Bello China-Latin America Research Foundation and a foreign policy adviser to Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó. See Privacy Policy at...

In a show taped in late February, Kaiser chats with Barbara Finamore, senior attorney and senior strategic director for Asia of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who shares her perspective on China's impressive progress in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, in reducing the price of renewable energy, and in producing electric vehicles. Tune in for a rare bit of optimism in these tough times! Se...

This week, we bring you another show from the California podcast series that Kaiser recorded back in December, before the ravages of COVID-19. Take a break from thinking about the virus to listen to Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, talk about why China requires a very different foreign policy approach than Russia. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Pr...

On this week's show, veteran reporter Dexter "Tiff" Roberts chats with Kaiser and Jeremy about his new book, The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World . 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 continues his California series with a conversation with Janet Yang, one of the legends of the U.S.-China film world, and Michael Berry, a professor at UCLA and a leading expert on Chinese cinema. They discuss how politics and other factors have taken the shine off the initial promise of U.S.-China film collaboration, but how some bright spots remain.  This episode...

In a show taped live at the China-U.S. Summit at Duke University on February 29, Kaiser chats with Ambassador Craig Allen, the longtime Asia-based diplomat who now serves as president of the U.S.-China Business Council. Topics include the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on U.S. businesses with China exposure, the major issues plaguing American companies, the phase one trade deal inked in January,...

In this episode, part of Sinica's California series, Kaiser chats with Alex Wang, a professor of law at UCLA and an expert on China's environmental law. Just back from the COP25 meeting in Madrid, Alex provides an informed and dispassionate assessment of China’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art1...

From the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 that ended the Qing dynasty to the Second Sino-Japanese War to Tiananmen in 1989 and Hong Kong 30 years later, songs have inspired and united people in protest and political movements in China. In this episode, Kaiser chats with Jeff Wasserstrom of the University of California, Irvine, about the anthems that have animated activism, and about Jeff’s new book, Vigi...

In a live show taped at the Asia Society in partnership with ChinaFile, Kaiser talked with prolific author Mara Hvistendahl at the launch event of her latest book, The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage . Written in the style of a thriller, this page-turner is well researched, admirably balanced, and incredibly timely. See Privacy Policy at https://art1...

This week, we feature an episode from the newest member of our Sinica Podcast Network: the China in Africa Podcast, hosted by Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden.  The United States sees Africa as a key arena to confront China's rising influence in the developing world. With its $60 billion International Development Finance Corporation and its Prosper Africa policy framework unveiled last year,...

Kaiser and Jeremy chat with Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where he directs the Global Health Governance roundtable series. In addition to his role at CFR, Yanzhong is also a professor at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, making him an ideal guest to talk about a pathogen with major domestic and inte...

With the United States now in a presidential election year, how should an incoming administration — whether a Democratic presidency or a second Trump administration — approach China policy. This week, Kaiser chats with eminent scholars Susan Shirk and Barry Naughton of the University of California, San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, and asks them how they would advise the future occ...

In the aftermath of the targeted killing of Qasem Soleimani in early January, Kaiser talked to Jeff Prescott, a veteran China-watcher who now serves as a senior advisor to the Penn Biden Center. Jeff previously served as Special Assistant to President Obama, Senior Director for Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf States on the National Security Council, and Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice Pre...

Maggie Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University, discusses the recent presidential election in Taiwan, where she and other Chinese and Taiwanese legal scholars took part as independent observers. Maggie and Kaiser also discuss domestic Taiwanese politics, the impact of demographic and social trends within the context of the election, and cross-Strait relations in 2020. See Privacy Policy at...