This week, Sinica features a chat with Ed Pulford, author of the recent book Mirrorlands: Russia, China, and Journeys in Between. Kaiser chats with Ed about the Sino-Russian border and Ed’s anthropological travelogue exploring the border’s past and present.
What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast:
28:06: Ed describes some of the tensions and perceptions that exist in the borderlands between Siberia and China’s northeast: “I think the increasing presence of Chinese ‘things’ — whether it’s material objects, consumer goods, or people who are coming over as tourists increasingly but also for longer as traders in the post-Soviet era — it’s a big shock and it has [presented] a lot of worries about the osmotic potential for what would happen if things were balanced out in terms of population and land use.”
43:43: Ed talks about Leonid, a Nanai man (赫哲族, Hèzhézú) whom he met during his travels along the Russian-Chinese border, his own ethnic awakening, and others that are occurring (and not occurring) around the world. “Among many, many indigenous groups of the Far East, the Far North, and Siberia, the post-Soviet period has been one where interest in global indigeneity — whether it’s Native American populations, Maori, or any other global indigenous cause — [there has] been a huge boom.”
Ed explains that within China, conditions are different: “There’s been a lot of this inter-indigenous group communication and networking. Whereas in China, at least from the Hèzhé and other groups, including the Éluósīzú and other minority groups, they’re part of a Chinese world that is not so much a part of those same discussions.”
Recommendations:
Ed: The Crab Cannery Ship and Other Novels of Struggle, by Kobayashi Takiji, and National Book Award finalist Pachinko, by Minjin Lee.
Kaiser: Ivanhoe, a 1982 film adaptation of the original work by Sir Walter Scott.
No Stranger to China: A conversation with Strangers in China creator Clay Baldo about Season 3
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
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