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.
China's population conundrum, with UNC demographer Yong Cai
COVID-19 origins revisited, with Deborah Seligsohn
Journalist Andrew Jones on China's space program
Chinese college students in the U.S., with Yingyi Ma
China, Russia, and the U.S.: Does the 'strategic triangle' still matter?
Orville Schell on his novel, My Old Home: A Novel of Exile
Margaret Lewis on ethnic profiling in the DOJ's China Initiative
China’s Heart of Darkness
U.S.-China climate cooperation in a competitive age
Searching for the six Chinese survivors of the ‘Titanic’
Beethoven in Beijing
China's new youth, with Alec Ash and Stephanie Studer
Ryan Hass on his new book, ‘Stronger’
The parallel world of Chinese tech, with Lillian Li
Cheng Lei: The detention and arrest of an Australian CGTN reporter
Getting Chinese politics wrong, with Jude Blanchette
Julie Klinger on China's rare earth frontiers
Journalist Te-Ping Chen on her short fiction collection, Land of Big Numbers
The Xinjiang camps on Clubhouse
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