I planned this one as a region-by-region tour: how is the Global South reacting to Trump and Putin summits? Eric Olander's answer, in the first ten minutes: mostly, it isn't. What looked like the absence of a story turned out to be the story. New Sinica episode 👇

I planned this one as a region-by-region tour: how is the Global South reacting to Trump and Putin summits? Eric Olander's answer, in the first ten minutes: mostly, it isn't. What looked like the absence of a story turned out to be the story. New Sinica episode 👇

This week on the Sinica Podcast, I speak with historian Andrew Seth Meyer about his wonderful new book "To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical China from Confucius to the First Emperor." Relevance schmelevance. This was a fun convo! 👇

Long live constructive strategic stability! 中美建设性战略稳定关系万岁！

I've just published a stupidly long essay called "The Civilization Trap" at the Sinica Podcast newsletter page. Free. Examines how civilizational discourse has returned (think Rubio's Munich speech and China's Global Civilization Initiative). Inspired in part by @chenchenzhang.net Link below.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began 4 years ago today. Two Ukrainian China scholars, a Beijing-based Ukrinform correspondent, and a leading analyst of Chinese media look at how Chinese perspectives on the war have evolved over the course of the last four years. 👇

Yi-Ling Liu's book The Wall Dancers traces China's internet through five lives: a rapper, a censor, a gay app founder, a feminist, a sci-fi writer. We talk "dancing in shackles," the end of techno-utopianism, and how Chinese & US internets are converging. New Sinica drops Wed!

Wrestling with the Iran intervention question. The humanitarian case is real but I loppose strikes. We suck at predicting what military force actually accomplishes. This might be the moment that forces a reckoning with liberal interventionism. My thinking (for now) in the essay at the link below. 👇

So depressing to read (over on the hellsite) all the WaPo foreign correspondents and others announcing they've been laid off. It'a completely insane to be gutting international coverage at a time like this. I'm dreading the crap that will fill the vacuum.

New Sinica Podcast episode with Ryan Hass of Brookings on US-China relations under Trump. He lays out 3 scenarios: soft landing, hard split, or (most likely) uneasy calm through mutual constraint. We dig into Beijing's bet on Trump, and why Xi's April visit matters. Link below 👇

500 modern Chinese wormhole back to the Ming Dynasty to jumpstart industrialization. A crowdsourced novel "The Morning Star of Lingao"《临高启明》— the ur-text for China's "Industrial Party." Writer Afra Wang joins the SinicaPodcast to discuss the Industrial Party, Lingao, & how China thinks about power.

This week on the SinicaPodcast, I speak with Danny Bessner about Cold War liberalism, how American primacy became ideology, why the first Cold War was a choice, and what genuine restraint toward China would actually require. Links below!

Fascinating stories of Chinese workers who migrated from rural areas to Guangdong in 2006-15: skillfully collected by the poet Zheng Xiaoqiong, translated by Eleanor Goodman, insightfully introduced by @kaiserkuo.bsky.social—and, thankfully, published by @equatormag.bsky.social.

The Makers of Modern China • EQUATOR

For many years, Zheng Xiaoqiong has collected the stories of the workers whose migration to Guangdong powered China’s manufacturing revolution

equator.org

Had a great conversation with @kaiserkuo.bsky.social of the Sinica Podcast about the causes and consequences of the seeming softening of Washington's China-hawkism.

NonZero@nonzeronews.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Is DC's China Vibe Shift Real? | In conversation with @robertwrighter.bsky.social, @kaiserkuo.bsky.social, host of the Sinica Podcast, argues that China hawkism has waned and assesses the causes and consequences.

It was my great honour to go back on the Sinica podcast with @kaiserkuo to discuss the "economic thriller" that is Nexperia Recommended if you want to go deep on the latest crisis in Europe's strategic autonomy Thanks Kaiser for having me!

Finbarr Bermingham of the SCMP on Nexperia, Export Controls, and Europe's Impossible Position

Sinica Podcast · Episode

open.spotify.com

This week on @SinicaPodcast, I spoke with Lizzi Lee of the Asia Society Policy Institute about China's 4th Plenum, the anti-involution push, why "overcapacity" is misleading, VAT incentives driving overcompetition, and what really happened at the Trump-Xi meeting in Busan.

Lizzi Lee on Involution, Overcapacity, and China's Economic Model

This week on Sinica, I chat with Lizzi Lee, a fellow on the Chinese economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute and one of the sharpest China analysts working today.

sinicapodcast.com

I have a new, long piece in The Ideas Letter called “The Great Reckoning: What the West Should Learn from China," arguing that we must learn from China even (or especially) when its successes unsettle our assumptions. Link below.

Turns out we're pretty CLUELESS about China in the West... @kaiserkuo.bsky.social (from the Sinica podcast) joins me for the latest episode of SMART COOKIES to explain why that's probably not a good idea 👇🏻 YT: youtu.be/uWAkwJlrPuE Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4jas... #china

New book review for @kaiserkuo.bsky.social's Sinica substack subscribers: Calvin Quek on "a welcome and timely update" by Ma Tianjie about environmental issues in China.

Book Review: Ma Tianjie's "In Search of Green China"

A guest post by Calvin Quek, Executive Director, Nature Finance, Oxford Sustainable Finance Group. Director, Transition Asia

sinicapodcast.com

This was a ton of fun. Thanks so much to Joe @weisenthal.bsky.social and @tracyalloway.bsky.social for inviting me on and asking great questions!

Joe Weisenthal@weisenthal.bsky.social · last yr.

NEW ODD LOTS: Why the world keeps getting surprised by Chinese tech gains. @tracyalloway.bsky.social and I speak with @kaiserkuo.bsky.social, host of the Sinica podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

Appearing on the Sinica podcast was a bucket list sort of thing. Thanks to @kaiserkuo.bsky.social for having me on to talk about ethnopolitics in China. There's more I wish I had said, and some things I wish I had said differently, but give it a listen! www.sinicapodcast.com/p/live-at-pi...

Live at Pitt: CMU's Benno Weiner on the Evolution of China's Minzu Policy

This week on Sinica, in a show recorded at the University of Pittsburgh, I speak with Benno Weiner, Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, about how China's policy toward its mi...

sinicapodcast.com

The Sinica podcast where I discuss my new book on evolution in IR with @kaiserkuo.bsky.social is now out! Evolutionary Psychology and International Relations, with Jeremy Garlick www.sinicapodcast.com/p/evolutiona...

Evolutionary Psychology and International Relations, with Jeremy Garlick

This week on the Sinica Podcast, I chat with Jeremy Garlick, Director of the Jan Masaryk Centre for International Studies, Prague University, and a scholar of China’s international relations.

sinicapodcast.com

If you're in the Bay Area, please come check out this live taping of the Sinica Podcast on Th 5pm PST in Berkeley. Guests are Ryan Hass (Obama NSC, Brookings) and Jessica Chen Weiss @jessicacweiss.bsky.social (Hopkins SAIS). Gonna be a banger! RSVP at the link. events.berkeley.edu/ieas/event/2...

Kaiser Kuo’s Sinica Podcast: China and the US in 2025, with Jessica Chen Weiss and Ryan Hass

RSVP is required.

events.berkeley.edu

Watching people defend USAID solely in terms of 'Great Power Competition' with China is like mourning a burned-down library and condemning the arsonist because now your rival has more books. Maybe — just maybe — foreign aid should have been about, you know, helping people?

Here's my latest interview with @kaiserkuo.bsky.social, founding guitarist of the legendary metal band Tang Dynasty, who will reunite with his other band Chun Qiu in March. Truly a pleasure to have on! youtu.be/7Jwvwdv4B4U?...

Interview with Kaiser Kuo (Spring & Autumn, formerly of Tang Dynasty) | Music Existence

YouTube video by Jake Kussmaul

youtu.be

Imma lose my shit if I ever hear anyone in this fucking administration accuse China of bullying and expansionism.

The one and only Jeremy @goldkorn.bsky.social returns to the Sinica Podcast to say why he thinks — with DeepSeek, the TikTok Refugees on Xiaohongshu, and more — a narrative shift on China is now underway in the US. Tell us whether you agree! Link in the reply thread below.

Lovely piece by the poet Heather Swan, married to my best friend, abt his bonkers love of winter & skating. “It’s the closest we get to flying,” he said once as he sailed past me. Another time: “Maybe this is how a dolphin feels carving through the water.” www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/590...

Keening for the Cailleach

The best nights are when moonlight comes through the trees, casting indigo shadows across the ice. My partner swoops around, his arms swinging in front of his crouched body. “It’s the closest we get t...

thesunmagazine.org

I'm curious about the perspectives of folks here on Bsky. Are we in a moment of narrative shift here in the U.S., or more broadly in the "West," regarding China? You know the drivers: DeepSeek, the "TikTok" refugees on Xiaohongshu, all atop growing awareness of China's tech prowess, EV boom etc. 1/n

Oh so NOW the AI guys are worried about intellectual property theft

OpenAI says it has evidence China’s DeepSeek used its model to train competitor

White House AI tsar David Sacks raises possibility of alleged intellectual property theft

ft.com