As Xi Jinping has stepped back into the public eye this week, the reappearance of China’s heir apparent has been upstaged by large demonstrations across the country as tensions mount over territorial claims to the Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Islands. As memories of earlier episodes of over-exuberant patriotism resurface, the events have the Sinica folks recalling with some nostalgia that the last time both Xi Jinping and a bunch of islands were in the news, the excitement was over Xi’s vacation stopover in Fiji on his way to a state visit to Latin America.
This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo is pleased to host new guests: Damien Ma, analyst with the Eurasia Group, who also contributes frequently to the Atlantic, and Ian Johnson, former Beijing bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, now with The New York Times. We are also thrilled to be rejoined by Tania Branigan, ace correspondent for The Guardian in Beijing and soon-to-be member of our “stalwart” class of Sinica supporters.