Sinica Podcast

From their website:

A weekly discussion of current affairs in China with journalists, writers, academics, policy makers, business people and anyone with something compelling to say about the country that's reshaping the world. Hosted by Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn and powered by SupChina.com. Each week, Kuo and Goldkorn talk about China-related topics with a range of guests including prominent China-based journalists, academics, authors, bloggers, and subject area experts. Guests have included reporters like Gady Epstein of The Economist; Edward Wong, Andrew Jacobs, and Ian Johnson of The New York Times; Evan Osnos of The New Yorker; Mary Kay Magistad of Public Radio International’s The World; Tania Branigan of The Guardian; Li Xin of Caixin; Jamil Anderlini of The Financial Times; John Garnaut of The Sydney Morning Herald; and Jeremy Page and Josh Chin of The Wall Street Journal.

Sinica has also hosted scholars like Geremie Barmé of Australian National University, Victor Mair of the University of Pennsylvania, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom of University of California, Irvine, as well as authors like Pankaj Mishra (From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2012) and Tom Miller (China’s Urban Billion: The Story Behind the Biggest Migration in Human History, Zed Books 2012). The hosts and guests also make a few recommendations at the end of each show—articles, books, documentaries, films, or other things that might be of interest to China watchers.

Launched in April 2010, the podcast is recorded in various locations in China, the USA, and around the world.

Last Updated: July 7, 2016

Sinica Podcast

07.02.10

Newsweek Bid, Renminbi Revaluation

Kaiser Kuo, Evan Osnos & more from Sinica Podcast
In a sudden move clearly intended to stave off criticism at the G20 meeting in Toronto, China loosened the yuan’s twenty-three-month-old peg to the American dollar earlier this month, allowing its currency to appreciate against the greenback. This...

Sinica Podcast

07.01.10

What If the BP Oil Spill Happened in China...

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
As Gady Epstein reports in this special dispatch, “some time ago, we reached the China Zone in the BP story.” The China Zone is—for those of you who haven’t heard of it yet—the point at which a reasonable observer will believe almost anything about...

Sinica Podcast

06.25.10

Beijing’s Ambivalent Relationship with the Internet

Jeremy Goldkorn, Bill Bishop & more from Sinica Podcast
Mere mention of Chinese Internet censorship is no longer taboo. Or that’s our take-away from a recent white paper by the State Council Information Office that outlines exactly how and why the Chinese government plans to tighten controls over online...

Sinica Podcast

06.18.10

Review of Chinese Books

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
Looking for a little summer reading? This week, Sinica sorts the wheat from the chaff with a massive review of books on China. Our discussion touches on a everything from Chinese fiction to non-fiction academic works on Chinese politics, economics,...

Sinica Podcast

06.11.10

Science Fiction in China

Kaiser Kuo & Gady Epstein from Sinica Podcast
Science fiction serves as a kind of mirror for how a society sees itself in the future. So what future do Chinese sci-fi writers envision in the far-off yet-to-come? And what role does China play in that future? Do contemporary Chinese writers see a...

Sinica Podcast

06.04.10

Suicides, Strikes, and Labor Unrest in China

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
A spate of suicides leaves ten dead at the Shenzhen campus of Foxconn, the giant electronics manufacturer that makes many of the world’s most popular consumer electronics. A rare strike paralyzes production at Honda Motors, shutting down all of the...

Sinica Podcast

05.28.10

Critical Media, Foreign and Domestic

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
Is the “Western media” biased in its reporting about China? What are the frames and narratives that inform the Anglophone media’s understanding of the county, and what are the misunderstandings about the “Western media” that lead Chinese people into...

Sinica Podcast

05.21.10

Mao’s Legacy and Foreign Self-Censorship

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
Notice your friends holding something back? In this Sinica podcast, we talk about the self-censoring phenomenon that’s taken root among the foreign community in China, and discuss a surprising case which demonstrates exactly the opposite: how one of...

Sinica Podcast

05.15.10

Schoolyard Violence with Chinese Characteristics

Jeremy Goldkorn, Gady Epstein & more from Sinica Podcast
Despite efforts to downplay the story in the face of the Shanghai Expo, news of a recent wave of copycat killings has spread quickly through China, driven in part by the surprising revelation that many of the killers have been middle-aged and...

Sinica Podcast

05.07.10

Dimensions of China’s Soft Power

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
The Beijing Olympics, the Shanghai Expo, the hundreds of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms, and Beijing’s new English-language satellite news networks are all part of a grand Chinese soft power push: an effort to win the world through...

Sinica Podcast

04.30.10

Huang Guangyu Trial, Real Estate Dilemma

Kaiser Kuo, Gady Epstein & more from Sinica Podcast
Huang Guangyu, the richest man in China, went on trial last week in Beijing. The founder of home electronics chain GOME was brought up on charges of bribery, money laundering, and insider trading. The dragnet in the investigation leading up to the...

Sinica Podcast

04.26.10

A Tom Friedman Exclusive

Kaiser Kuo from Sinica Podcast
As you’re probably aware, earlier this month Hu Jintao hotfooted it to Washington to attend a nuclear security summit and discuss potential United Nations sanctions against Iran.While the rest of the Internet was sleeping on this story, we at Sinica...