This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Deborah Seligsohn, who served as the State Department’s Environment, Science, Technology and Health Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 2003 to 2007. She is now an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University in Philadelphia, where she currently teaches a course on pandemics and politics. She recalls her firsthand experience with China’s SARS response in 2003, shares her views on how much China improved in the intervening years, and talks about how, when, and why China mishandled its initial response to the novel coronavirus in the winter of 2019–2020. Deborah also offers her critical perspective on the persistent “lab-leak” theory.
This show was recorded on March 12, with an addendum recorded on March 29, in which Deborah addresses some of the news relating to the search for COVID’s origins that came out in the intervening weeks.
6:50: Understanding the origins of COVID-19
34:16: Chinese scientists’ unwillingness to share data
43:54: The World Health Organization’s handling of the virus
54:36: The lab-leak theory
Recommendations:
Deborah: Coronation, by Ai Weiwei, and the podcast In The Bubble: From The Frontlines.
Kaiser: The rise of made-in-China diplomacy, Peter Hessler’s latest piece in The New Yorker.
Mary Kay Magistad - On China's New Silk Road (Episode 1: The China Dream)
Black voices in the China space
Poverty eradication by 2020: A reality check
Rapper Bohan Phoenix and DJ Allyson Toy on hip-hop in China
Rerun: Guo Wengui: The extraordinary tale of a Chinese billionaire turned dissident, told by Mike Forsythe and Alexandra Stevenson
U.S. Foreign Service Officer Leland Lazarus on China-Caribbean relations
Global Governance 2020: A discussion with Kaiser Kuo and Susan Thornton
Adam Tooze on the geopolitics of the pandemic
Sir Danny Alexander on AIIB in a time of crisis
‘Superpower Showdown’: A conversation with authors Bob Davis and Lingling Wei
Huawei and the 5G ecosystem
Standoff in Ladakh: Ananth Krishnan on the China-India border conflict
The controversy over Fang Fang’s ‘Wuhan Diary’: A conversation with the translator, Michael Berry
Why doesn't the China bubble pop? A conversation with Bloomberg’s chief economist, Tom Orlik
Censored: Molly Roberts on how China uses deterrence, distraction, and dilution to control its internet
‘Superpower Interrupted’: A conversation with veteran China journalist Michael Schuman about his Chinese history of the world
Max Fisher of the New York Times on media coverage of China, COVID-19, and Trump
Has China won? Part 2 of our conversation with Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani
Has China won? A conversation with Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani
Kaiser interviews Gordon Chang!
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free