Sinica Podcast

The immense popularity of social media has afforded China watchers a terrific window onto public opinion in China. In recent years, a slew of English-language websites have emerged to interpret the various trends, phenomena, discourse and debates on the Chinese internet for non-Chinese audiences, but for our money, the very best of the bunch is Chublic Opinion — public opinion with Chinese characteristics...

Members of the Politburo are rarely praised for their dancing skills, but consider Xi Jinping's almost flawless execution of a political two-step: first casting himself as the voice of liberal moderation in the face of Bo Xilai's mass propaganda, and then draping himself in the mantle of Maoist China and the Communist Revolution once his position was secure...

Kaiser and Jeremy recorded today's show from New York, where they waylaid Holly Chang, founder of Project Pengyou and now the Acting Executive Director of the Committee of 100, for a discussion on spying, stealing and Broadway. Yes, you read that right...

Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are joined this week by Howie Southworth and Greg Matza, creators of the independent video series Sauced in Translation, a reality show that journeys into the wilder parts of China in search of local Chinese specialities that can be repurposed into classic American dishes...

With equity markets in free fall, housing prices skipping downwards, foreign reserves plummeting and industrial production on a road trip back to the last decade, it's no surprise that permabears like Gordon Chang are stocking up on popcorn to bask in what they see as the long-due collapse of the Chinese economy. It all raises the question of how bad things are going to get, which leads to the question of how bad they are right now...

This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are joined by Deborah Seligsohn, former science counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and currently a doctoral candidate at the University of California, San Diego, where she studies environmental governance in China. With more than 20 years of China experience, Deborah is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on the question of China's policy response to issues of air pollution and climate change...

When Ernest Hemingway somewhat presciently referred to Paris as a "moveable feast" ("wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you"), he captured the feelings of many long-term China expats rather concisely...

Amazing research now suggests that Beijing's swifts, the tiny creatures most residents pass by without noticing, are some of the most well-travelled birds on the planet, averaging an astonishing 124,000 miles of flight in their life, barely landing for years on end, and migrating as far as the southern tip of Africa...

This is the second part of our episode of Sinica recorded during a special live event at the Bookworm Literary Festival. In this show David Moser and Kaiser Kuo were joined by China-newcomer Jeremy Goldkorn, fresh off the plane from Nashville to field questions from our live Beijing audience. During this show, we talk about what Beijing means to us and what we see happening in China going forward...

Our episode of Sinica this week was captured during a special live event at the Bookworm Literary Festival, where David Moser and Kaiser Kuo were joined by China-newcomer Jeremy Goldkorn, fresh off the plane from Nashville. During the show we talked about Beijing-lifers and how the city has changed during our time here. If you're a long-time listener, be sure to check out this unusual episode recorded in front of a live audience. Recommendations: Chublic Opinion https://chublicopinion...