On this week’s episode, our guest Ma Tianjie, editor of the bilingual environmental website China Dialogue and the blogger behind Chublic Opinion, untangles the complexities and contradictions of online discussions in China. Tianjie shares insights into three key events in China’s public-opinion landscape that inflamed hordes of online commentators: a shocking family murder-suicide; a famous actor’s cheating spouse; and a mass online action in the name of patriotism against a popular film director and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The conversation also delves into the origin of the “little pink” patriots who combine cutesy pop culture with nationalistic cyberactivism, as well as Chinese critiques of “white liberalism” and the urban elites who espouse its values.
You can find background reading for this podcast here, which includes summaries and links to the Ma Tianjie articles discussed in the podcast, along with a supplementary Q&A by Jeremy Goldkorn in which he discusses Tianjie’s background and the roots of his interest in environmental issues.
Recommendations:
Jeremy: Aeropress coffee maker.
Ada: Fact checking websites: Factcheck.org, for example.
Ma Tianjie: Fan Hua 繁花, a novel in Chinese by Jin Yucheng 金宇澄.
Kaiser:The Goldfinch, a novel by Donna Tartt.
Avoiding ideological conflict with Beijing: Thomas Pepinsky and Jessica Chen Weiss
How China escaped shock therapy: Isabella Weber unpacks the debates of the 1980s
The Chinese Communist Party at 100
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
China's COVID-19 response and the virus's origins, with Deborah Seligsohn
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
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free