A weekly discussion of current affairs in China with journalists, writers, academics, policymakers, business people and anyone with something compelling to say about the country that's reshaping the world. Hosted by Kaiser Kuo.
https://art19.com/shows/sinica
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 18 days 11 hours 45 minutes
Edmund Backhouse in the long view of history
Edmund Backhouse, the 20th-century Sinologist, long-time Beijing resident, and occasional con artist, is perhaps best known for his incendiary memoirs, which not only distorted Western understanding of Chinese history for more than 50 years, but also included what, in retrospect, can only be seen as patently fictitious stories of erotic encounters between the British baronet and Empress Dowager Cixi...
Sinica archive: Beijing's Great Leap Forward
Great Leap Brewery is an institution. As one of the earliest American-style microbreweries in China, not only has the company rescued us from endless nights of Snow and Yanjing, but it's also given us something uniquely Chinese with its assortment of peppercorn, honey, and tea-flavored beers. So as much as we love the other microbreweries in Beijing and throw our money at them, too, it's no accident the Great Leap taproom is our most frequent destination most evenings after recording a show...
Rogier Creemers on cyber Leninism and the political culture of the Chinese internet
Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are delighted to be joined in Popup Towers by Rogier Creemers, post-doctoral fellow at Oxford, author of the fantastic China Copyright and Media blog and one of the most informed academics working on Chinese internet governance. We've always enjoyed our previous chances to grill Rogier on his thoughts, and our discussion this week didn't disappoint either. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19...
Comfort women and the struggle for reparations
This week on Sinica, we are delighted to be joined by Lucy Hornby, China correspondent for the Financial Times, and author of this phenomenal piece on China's last surviving Chinese comfort women and their longstanding — and often futile — attempts to seek reparations in both China and Japan. Join us today as we talk about this piece, and also other stories of reparations and post-war politics that may leave you, like us, somewhat less cynical going out than coming in...
Under the Dome
"Under the Dome," Chai Jing's breakout documentary on China's catastrophic air pollution problem, finally hit insurmountable political opposition last Friday after seven days in which the video racked up over 200 million views. The eventual clampdown raised many questions about the extent of internal support for the documentary...
LGBT China
Jeremy Goldkorn and David Moser are joined by Fan Popo for a discussion of the way life works for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) community in China. For those who have not heard of him, Fan is an accomplished film-maker and social activist, best known as author of the book Happy Together, a complete record of 100 queer films, as well as the director of the China Queer Film Festival. Recommendations: Passions of the Cut Sleeve (free pdf!) http://homosexualfamilies.viublogs...
The Islamic State and China
With the recent capture of a Chinese ISIS soldier (in September of 2014) triggering speculation about the involvement of Chinese citizens in the Iraqi civil war, Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are joined in our studio by Edward Wong from The New York Times and Prashant Rao of AFP, both of whom have spent considerable time reporting from Iraq...
Bo Xilai: The Trial of the Century
The spectacular trial of Bo Xilai seized the media's attention last week as the fallen politburo member — still widely admired in Chongqing and Dalian and heavily connected among the Party elite — defended himself with unexpected vigor against charges of corruption, and hardly paused to implicate his wife and subordinates in murder, mutual poisoning and financial skullduggery...
The one-child policy, plus the African community in Guangzhou
While the African community in Guangzhou has taken to the streets to protest the suspicious death of a foreign national in police custody, the Chinese internet has proven equally volatile as gruesome photos of a late-stage abortion have circulated online to the shock and horror of many netizens...
The extremes of Chinese media, plus Chinese internet humor
It seems to be the consensus among long-time China watchers that the Chinese media has become more radicalized over the last five years, with both online and traditional channels now feeding the public conflicting stories of both reflexive scorn for the status quo or patriotic jingoism. But how radical are things getting? And what are the limits to how much further they can go, or will be allowed to go on either side? This week on Sinica we look at two of the extremes...