This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser welcomes back Dan Wang, technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, to talk about this year's annual letter. Dan's letters have become something of an institution: wide-ranging, insightful, and always contentious, his missives are read by a great many observers of contemporary China and spark some lively conversations. This year's letter contrasts the major megacities that Dan has lived in (Beijing, Shanghai, and the "Greater Bay Area" of the Pearl River Delta), examines Xi Jinping's efforts to shift the energies of China's technologists and entrepreneurs away from the consumer internet and toward deep tech, ponders the causes of China's "cultural stunting" and the challenges that China faces, and has not yet overcome, in creating cultural products that the rest of the world wants, and warns of the dangers of focusing only on China's weaknesses and problems and ignoring its prodigious capabilities. Tune in for a fascinating conversation with one of the Sinosphere's more original thinkers.
4:15 – Dan appraises Beijing, Shanghai, and the PRD Greater Bay Area
20:48 – How to think about the "common prosperity" agenda (a.k.a. the Red New Deal)
39:21 – The tradeoff between efficiency and resilience: China as an inefficient but anti-fragile economy
45:34 – Should the United States be learning from China? The case for reform of American institutions
50:38 – A technocratic resurgence in China? The rise of a "Beihang Clique"
58:17 – The causes of "cultural stunting" in China
A transcript of this podcast is available on SupChina.com.
Recommendations:Dan: Charles Dickens, Bleak House, and Jurgen Osterhammel, Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia
Kaiser: Ritchie Robertson, The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680 to 1790
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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