This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Thomas Pepinsky and Jessica Chen Weiss, both professors of government at Cornell University, about their recent essay in Foreign Affairs, “The Clash of Systems? Washington Should Avoid Ideological Competition With Beijing.” In that essay, they argue that, despite all the talk of Chinese authoritarianism as an existential threat to American democracy, Beijing is mostly on the defensive, and does not seek to export its political system. This is not to say that American democracy is not under threat: It very much is — but not from China. Tom, a specialist on Southeast Asia, looks at the ASEAN countries and their relations with Beijing to show that ideological affinity is not a predictor of close ties to China. And Jessica offers an update to her influential 2018 essay on China’s effort to “make the world safe for autocracy.”
8:08: Defining ideology and ideological competition
19:57: Beijing’s transactional conduct with nations in Southeast Asia and the geostrategic implications
25:20: How the current rhetoric in the United States fuels Sinophobia and anti-Asian racism
36:01: China as the disgruntled stakeholder
A transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com.
Recommendations:
Tom: The French television shows Lupin and The Bureau.
Jessica: “The Ezra Klein Show” podcast interview with Jamila Michener, and anything written by Yangyang Cheng.
Kaiser: Music to read by: The Goldberg Variations (particularly the 1982 version performed by Glenn Gould and the version performed by Lang Lang), The Well-Tempered Clavier, and The French Suites, by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the YouTube series “What Makes This Song Great?,” by Rick Beato.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Talking Taiwan with former national intelligence officer Paul Heer
A new U.S. strategy in East Asia, from the Quincy Institute
China's judicial decisions database and what it means
Ryan Hass on the Biden administration's China direction
Ian Johnson and Lin Yao on "liberal" Chinese Trump supporters
Historian James Carter on the final days of Old Shanghai
Veteran diplomat Evan Feigenbaum on U.S. policy in a changing Asia
China and India: Pallavi Aiyar and Ananth Krishnan on mutual misperceptions
Is coercive environmentalism the answer?
Chilies and China: Brian Dott on how a New World import defined regional cuisines in China
Jennifer Pan studied clickbait in Chinese propaganda. You won’t believe what she discovered!
Rana Mitter on the reshaping of China’s World War II legacy
A China policy for the progressive left
The wuxia storyverse of Peter Shiao
Southeast Asia in the dragon's shadow: A conversation with Sebastian Strangio
The American journalists still in China
The fight over Inner Mongolia's "bilingual education" policy
U.S.-China relations in 2020 with Susan Shirk
Online vitriol and identity with The New Yorker’s Jiayang Fan
Sinica celebrates the 500th episode of the China in Africa Podcast
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free