This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Andrew Jones, a Helsinki-based reporter who over the last several years has secured a place as the go-to English-language journalist covering China’s space program. With the successful arrival of the Tianwen spacecraft in Martian orbit and the deployment of the Zhurong Mars rover, China is catching up quickly with NASA in space exploration milestones. But China’s space program also comes in for criticism for its opacity and for potentially dangerous practices — like the uncontrolled reentry of a large Long March 5B rocket in early May. Andrew gives the latest on China’s outer-space ambitions, including planned missions to Jupiter’s outermost Galilean moon, Callisto, and beyond the edge of our solar system.
7:09: A look at the China National Space Administration
13:02: Major missions done by China’s space program
24:31: U.S. hesitance toward space collaboration with China
48:39: China’s private space companies
52:53: Potential future Chinese space missions
Recommendations:
Andrew: The TV series The Expanse, available on Amazon Prime Video, the FIRST UP daily newsletter from Space News, the Axios Space newsletter, and the podcast Moonrise by the Washington Post.
Kaiser: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Author Rebecca Kuang on her novel Babel, or on the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators Revolution
The best solution for Taiwan is no solution: Jude Blanchette and Ryan Hass argue for kicking the can down the road
China's push for RMB internationalization
A familiar drumbeat: Michael Mazarr on the run-up to the Iraq invasion and parallels with China
Special episode: The COVID lockdown protests, with David Moser and Jeremiah Jenne
Financial Times reporter Yuan Yang on China-Europe relations
Evan Feigenbaum on the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region
New America President Anne-Marie Slaughter on balancing China competition and global imperatives
The 20th Party Congress postgame show with Damien Ma and Lizzi Lee
Grifter, chaos agent, or CCP spy? The New Yorker's Evan Osnos on Guo Wengui
Overreach and overreaction, with Susan Shirk
Podcasting The Prince: Sue-Lin Wong of The Economist on her Xi Jinping podcast
Legendary BBC presenter and China editor Carrie Gracie, live in London
A conversation with Minister Xu Xueyuan, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Washington
China in the Global South, with Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden
Surveillance State: Authors Josh Chin and Liza Lin on their new book on China's tech-enhanced social controls
Yuen Yuen Ang on Xi Jinping, the Party bureaucracy, and authoritarian resilience
Avoiding the China Trap, with Jessica Chen Weiss
Is China's bubble finally about to pop? A conversation with Bloomberg Chief Economist Tom Orlik
China's space program, with NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free