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Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

300 episodes

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.

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. Mr. China’s Great Enterprise: Tim Clissold and the Fight for a Chinese Civilisation A-level

    · 1 h 11 min

    This week on Sinica, I sit down in Beijing with Tim Clissold. If you read one book about doing business in China in the 2000s, there’s a fair chance it was his Mr. China, the self-aware, admirably self-deprecating…

  2. Afra Wang on Liangzhu, China’s Vibe-Coding Capital, and the Anxious Optimism of the AI Boom

    · 1 h 39 min

    This week on Sinica, I’m joined again by Afra Wang, the Bay Area-based writer behind the AI newsletter Concurrent, who was last on the show in January to talk about her Wired piece on The Morning Star of Lingao and…

  3. From Barefoot Doctors to Biologics: Dr. Ruby Wang on China's Healthcare Revolution

    · 1 h 25 min

    This week on Sinica, I sit down with Dr. Ruby Wang, whose new book, China Cure: The Rise of a Biotech, AI Medicine and Global Health Superpower (Agenda Publishing, out October 31, with a foreword by Kerry Brown), is…

  4. Not a Master Plan: The Real History of China's Rare Earth Dominance, with Gloria Xiong and Jessica Chen Weiss

    · 1 h 18 min

    This week I sat down with Gloria Xiong, Assistant Professor of Government at Colby College, and Jessica Chen Weiss, the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS, to discuss their new Foreign…

  5. Strategic Stalemate: Ryan Hass on How Beijing Sees America — and Trump

    · 1 h 01 min

    This week on Sinica, I’m joined once again by Ryan Hass, Director of the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, former NSC director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and co-host of the Beijing Brief podcast. Ryan…

  6. Talking Past Each Other: Pallavi Aiyar on India, China, and the Case for Cognitive Empathy

    · 1 h 20 min

    This week on Sinica, I sit down with the writer Pallavi Aiyar — at her own dining table in Beijing, where in recent months I’ve been the lucky beneficiary of her and her husband Julio’s legendary hospitality. Pallavi…

  7. The Future, Made in China: Evan Osnos on America's Reckoning

    · 1 h 35 min

    This week on Sinica, I welcome back Evan Osnos of The New Yorker, whose marvelous new essay, “The Future, Made in China,” chronicles a tech-focused return trip to Beijing, where he lived from 2005 to 2013 — first for…

  8. Samm Sacks and Paul Triolo on WAIC 2026, Xi's AI Speech, and Kimi K3

    · 1 h 38 min

    This week on Sinica, a rare treat: an in-person recording from Beijing with two dear friends who happen to be two of the very best in the business on technology and China — Samm Sacks and Paul Triolo, fresh off the…

  9. The Platform State: Angela Zhang and Alex Yang on How China Really Governs Its Economy

    · 1 h 04 min

    This week on Sinica, in a special episode recorded at the Davos On Air booth at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, I sat down with Angela Huyue Zhang, professor of law at USC's…

  10. Agile Governance: Tsinghua's Xue Lan on How China Regulates What It Can't Fully Predict

    · 53 min

    Recorded live from the Davos on Air booth at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, this special episode of Sinica tackles the "pacing problem": the widening gap between how fast AI…

  11. China Shock 2.0: This Time It's Europe, with Adam Tooze

    · 47 min

    Last week in Brussels, EU leaders held their first sustained debate on China policy in three years, and were so wary of Beijing’s reaction they wouldn’t print the word “China” on the agenda. The trigger: a goods-trade…

  12. "But China!": Robert Wright on the AI Race and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning

    · 1 h 54 min

    This week on Sinica I'm joined by Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and The Evolution of God, for a conversation that runs a little outside our usual beat, though China sits closer to its center than…

  13. The Texas Paradox: How the Most Anti-China State Is Building America's China Capacity

    · 1 h 42 min

    The summit in Beijing produced a "constructive strategic stability" framework and a warming of tone between the two presidents. But heads of state can announce a multi-year horizon; somebody else has to operationalize…

  14. The View from Everywhere Else: Eric Olander on how the Global South is reading the Beijing summits

    · 1 h 21 min

    Eric Olander on how the Global South is reading the Beijing summits This week I'm joined again by Eric Olander, founder of the China Global South Project, which runs the most indispensable English-language operation…

  15. To Rule All Under Heaven: Andrew Meyer on His New Popular History of the Warring States

    · 1 h 21 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Andrew Seth Meyer, professor of history at CUNY Brooklyn College and the author of a remarkable new book from Oxford University Press, To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical…

  16. "Constructive Strategic Stability": Ali Wyne of the International Crisis Group on the Trump-Xi Summit

    · 1 h 06 min

    This week on Sinica, I chat with Ali Wyne, Senior Research and Advocacy Adviser for U.S.-China at the International Crisis Group, just hours after President Trump's plane left Chinese airspace at the end of a three-day…

  17. "The China Debate We're Not Having" | Part 4: The AI Race Reconsidered

    · 36 min

    This week I’m sharing the fourth and final installment from the day-long conference convened by the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF) at Johns Hopkins SAIS on April 3rd in Washington…

  18. The Poetry of Zheng Xiaoqiong: A Conversation with Translator Eleanor Goodman

    · 1 h 12 min

    This week on Sinica, in a special episode recorded as a live joint webcast with NYRB/Poets and Equator Magazine, I sit down with Eleanor Goodman — poet, scholar, research associate at Harvard's Fairbank Center, and one…

  19. "The China Debate We're Not Having" | Part 3: Tech, Rivalry, and Competing Visions of the Future

    · 1 h 06 min

    This week I'm sharing the third installment from the day-long conference convened by the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF) at Johns Hopkins SAIS on April 3rd in Washington — "The…

  20. Spain's China Gambit: Pedro Sánchez, Strategic Autonomy, and the European Turn to Beijing — with Mario Esteban Rodríguez

    · 1 h 06 min

    This week on Sinica: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrapped up his fourth visit to China in as many years last week, and this one may be the most consequential yet. It comes at a moment when Spain has emerged,…

  21. "The China Debate We're Not Having" | Part 2: What Does the United States Want?

    · 1 h 07 min

    This week I'm sharing the next installment from the terrific day-long conference convened by the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF) at Johns Hopkins SAIS on April 3rd in Washington —…

  22. "The China Debate We're Not Having" | Part 1: What China Wants

    · 1 h 08 min

    Opening Remarks & Session 1: What China Wants Johns Hopkins SAIS ACF Conference, April 3, 2026 This week's episode features audio from a day-long conference hosted by the Institute for America, China, and the Future…

  23. Adam Tooze is Chinamaxxing!

    · 1 h 26 min

    Economic historian Adam Tooze returns to Sinica fresh from the China Development Forum and his second extended visit to Beijing in under a year. In this wide-ranging conversation, Adam and I cover the 15th Five-Year…

  24. Is China Trying to Sever Plato from NATO? Chang Che on Beijing's Embrace of the Greco-Roman Classics

    · 1 h 18 min

    This week on Sinica, I welcome journalist and former colleague Chang Che. His recent New Yorker piece "How China Learned to Love the Classics" generated enormous attention. We explore one of the more surprising…

  25. Edge of Ruin: Mike Lampton and Wang Jisi’s Warning on U.S.-China Relations

    · 1 h 33 min

    David M. Lampton—“Mike”—is one of America’s most distinguished scholars of U.S.–China relations, director of China Studies Emeritus at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and the author of landmark works on Chinese politics and…

  26. Governing Digital China, with Daniela Stockmann and Ting Luo

    · 1 h 08 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Daniela Stockmann and Ting Luo, co-authors of Governing Digital China, a new book that examines how an authoritarian state governs a digital ecosystem it doesn't fully own, can never…

  27. Yi-Ling Liu on The Wall Dancers: China's Internet, Its Creative Spirits, and the Art of the Possible

    · 1 h 18 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Yi-Ling Liu, journalist, former China editor at Rest of World, and author of the new book The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet. Yi-Ling's book…

  28. Kyle Chan on the Great Reversal in Global Technology Flows

    · 1 h 21 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Kyle Chan, a fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, previously a postdoc at Princeton, and author of the outstanding High-Capacity Newsletter on Substack. Kyle has…

  29. Brookings' Patricia Kim Takes Stock of Trump's Second-Term China Policy

    · 1 h 05 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Patricia Kim, a Fellow at the Brookings Institution's John L. Thornton China Center, where she focuses on U.S. policy toward China and the broader Asia Pacific. One year into Donald…

  30. Uneasy Calm: Ryan Hass on Three Pathways for U.S.-China Relations Under Trump

    · 1 h 04 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings and one of the most clear-eyed analysts of the U.S.-China relationship working today. Ryan was director for China…

  31. Afra Wang on "The Morning Star of Lingao" (临高启明) and the Rise and Reckoning of China's "Industrial Party"

    · 1 h 25 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Afra Wang, a writer working between London and the Bay Area, currently a fellow with Gov.AI. We're talking today about her recent WIRED piece on what might be China's most influential…

  32. The Highest Exam: Jia Ruixue and Li Hongbin on China's Gaokao and What It Reveals About Chinese Society

    · 1 h 16 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Jia Ruixue and Li Hongbin, coauthors of The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China. We're talking about China's college entrance exam — dreaded and feared, with outsized ability to…

  33. Daniel Bessner on American Primacy, Cold War Liberalism, and the China Challenge

    · 1 h 04 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Daniel Bessner, the Anne H.H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Assistant Professor in American Foreign Policy at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington…

  34. Eric Olander: After the Maduro Capture — Assessing China's Real Exposure in Venezuela

    · 1 h 10 min

    This week on Sinica, in a joint episode with the China-Global South Podcast, I speak with Eric Olander, host of the China Global South Podcast and founder/editor-in-chief of the China-Global South Project. In the…

  35. Michael Brenes and Van Jackson on Why U.S.-China Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy

    · 1 h 03 min

    This week on Sinica, recorded at Yale University, I speak with Michael Brenes and Van Jackson, coauthors of The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy. Their argument is that…

  36. Paul Triolo on Nvidia H200s, Chinese EUV Breakthroughs, and the Collapse of the Sullivan Doctrine

    · 1 h 25 min

    Happy holidays from Sinica! This week, I speak with Paul Triolo, Senior Vice President for China and Technology Policy Lead at DGA Albright Stonebridge Group and nonresident honorary senior fellow on technology at the…

  37. Mark Sidel on China's Oversight of Foreign NGOs: Eight Years of the Overseas NGO Law

    · 1 h 04 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Mark Sidel, the Doyle Bascom Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a senior fellow at the International Center for Not for Profit Law. Mark…

  38. Guest Host Iza Ding with Deborah Seligsohn: Inside COP30 in Belem, Brazil, and China's Climate Leadership

    · 2 h 06 min

    This week on Sinica, I'm delighted to have Iza Ding as guest host. Iza is a professor of political science at Northwestern University and a good friend whose work on Chinese governance I greatly admire. She's joined by…

  39. Murder House: Zhong Na on the Silicon Valley Tragedy That Exposed the Cracks in China's Meritocracy

    · 50 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak with Zhong Na, a novelist and essayist whose new piece, "Murder House," appears in the inaugural issue of Equator — a striking new magazine devoted to longform writing that crosses borders,…

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

    · 51 min

    This week on Sinica, I welcome back Finbarr Bermingham, the Brussels-based Europe correspondent for the South China Morning Post, about the Nexperia dispute — one of the most revealing episodes in the global contest…

  41. We Were Right: Kaiser and Jeremy Reunite to Riff on the China Vibe Shift

    · 54 min

    This week on Sinica, I welcome back Jeremy Goldkorn, co-founder of the show and my longtime co-host, to revisit the "vibe shift" we first discussed back in February. Seven months on, what we sensed then has fully borne…

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

    · 1 h 25 min

    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. We dig into the 4th Plenary Session of the 20th…

  43. Foreign Affairs Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan on Shifting Views of China

    · 1 h 05 min

    This week on Sinica, I chat with Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, editor of Foreign Affairs, about how the journal has both shaped and reflected American discourse on China during a period of dramatic shifts in the relationship.…

  44. The View from Behind Xi Jinping's Desk, with Jonathan Czin

    · 1 h 20 min

    This week on the Sinica Podcast, I speak with Jonathan Czin, the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center. His new essay in Foreign…

  45. The Symbolism of the Flying Tigers: Peking University's Wang Dong on the American Volunteer Group and its Historical and Diplomatic Usages

    · 39 min

    This week on Sinica, I chat with Peking University's Professor Wang Dong (王栋), an international relations scholar at the School of International Studies at Peking University, where he also serves as Deputy Director and…

  46. Jasmine Sun on Silicon Valley through a Chinese Mirror

    · 1 h 11 min

    This week on Sinica, co-host Tianyu Fang makes his debut on the show to join me in interviewing his Stanford classmate and talented writer Jasmine Sun, who studies the anthropology of disruption. This summer, she took…

  47. Yascha Mounk on China and Western Liberalism

    · 1 h 22 min

    This week on the Sinica Podcast, I chat with well-known author and public intellectual Yascha Mounk about his recent fascination with China, his approach to learning about the country and learning Chinese, and his…

  48. What Did the September 3 Parade Mean?

    · 1 h 43 min

    This week on Sinica, I speak first with retired Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, a frequent commentator on Chinese military and security affairs and a prolific writer now at the Center for International Security and Strategy at…

  49. What Does China Want? The Authors of a New Paper Challenge the DC Consensus

    · 1 h 30 min

    This week on Sinica, I chat with Dave Kang (USC), Zenobia Chan (Georgetown), and Jackie Wong (American University in Sharjah, UAE) about their new paper in International Security titled "What Does China Want?" The…

  50. Trump's India Tariff Tirade: A Gift to Beijing? With Evan Feigenbaum

    · 1 h 04 min

    This week on the Sinica Podcast, I welcome back Evan Feigenbaum, Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Evan served for many years as a State Department official, was the Deputy…

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