This week on Sinica, Jeremy and Kaiser chat with Jackson Miller, a master’s candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s public policy program. Jackson’s research of illegal trade in Malagasy hardwood led him to discover the bizarre story of Gao Jose Ramaherison — an unemployed man from Liaoning, China, who parlayed his kung-fu skills into political prominence in Madagascar.
Recommendations:
Jeremy: Recommends that everyone should visit Madagascar, especially for its beautiful and diverse natural environment. He recommends Ile Sainte Marie, an island off the east coast of Madagascar. Jeremy also recommends visiting a bunch of islands near Madagascar before they are all underwater: Comoro Islands, to the northwest of Madagascar, along with Mauritius and the Seychelles.
Jeremy also likes the weird Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch and his painting The Garden of Earthly Delights. The Twitter account @artistbosch highlights particular parts of this and other paintings by Bosch in bite-sized pieces.
Jackson: Joe Studwell’s Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Also, the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief, a fantastic weekly newsletter that gives you a rundown of the big stories from all across Africa every Sunday morning, as well as a schedule of events for tech conferences and more, plus music recommendations.
Kaiser: Recommends taking up a new instrument in middle age. With Youtube, there’s no shortage of convenient ways to learn the basics — Kaiser picked up a used drum kit and has been bashing away at it for a while now.
The Xinjiang camps on Clubhouse
China’s struggle for tech ascendancy, with Dan Wang of Gavekal Dragonomics
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
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