Chinese Whispers

By: The Spectator
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  • Summary

  • A fortnightly podcast from the Spectator on the latest in Chinese politics, society, and more. From Huawei to Hong Kong, Cindy Yu talks to experts, journalists, and long time China-watchers on what you need to know about China.
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Political Science Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • A father and son at the edge of the Chinese empire

    A father and son at the edge of the Chinese empire
    Sep 16 2024
    As a child, the New York Times journalist Edward Wong had no idea that his father had been in the People’s Liberation Army. But as he grew up, a second generation immigrant in the United States, Edward was hungry to find out more about his father and mother’s pasts in the People’s Republic of China. That hunger took him to study China at university and eventually to become the New York Times’s Beijing bureau chief.

    Edward’s new book, At the Edge of Empire, is a marvellously constructed work that traces his father’s journey through China as a soldier in the PLA, and his own reporting in China as an American journalist. It reveals how China has changed between the lives of father and son, but also how some aspects – such as the nature of political power – have not changed at all.

    On this episode, I talk to Edward about the yearning of second-generation immigrants to understand their roots, why both China and America can be seen as empires, and the seventy years of change that the lives of father and son span.
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    39 mins
  • Investigating China's 'historic' claims in the South China Sea

    Investigating China's 'historic' claims in the South China Sea
    Sep 2 2024
    The South China Sea has been an area of regular clashes and heightened tensions under the leadership of Xi Jinping. It seems that, every few months, Chinese naval or coastguard ships clash or almost clash with vessels from South East Asian nations like Vietnam and the Philippines. Only last week, a Chinese ship clashed with the Filipino coast guard in the Spratly Islands, with both sides levelling angry accusations at each other.

    The region is full of disputed claims, making it fertile waters for accidental escalation. China says its claims to the region – encompassed by the ‘nine-dash line’ – are historic; that island sets such as the Spratlys and the Paracels in the South China Sea are as integral to the Chinese empire as Hong Kong or Taiwan. How sound is that claim?

    This episode will be digging into the origins of the nine-dash line (roughly pictured here) – and finds them not so much in ancient imperial days. The chaotic formation of China’s claims in the South China Sea is researched and detailed in Bill Hayton’s book, The Invention of China.

    To hear more about Bill's book, tune in to our previous episode: What is it to be Chinese?
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    43 mins
  • What would a second Trump presidency bring for China?

    What would a second Trump presidency bring for China?
    Aug 19 2024
    Trump is tough on China, but what really motivates his hawkishness? Does he care at all about China's human rights abuses? Or is he fundamentally a foreign policy disentangler, hoping to rein back America's overseas commitments? How much does the China policy of a second Trump presidency depend on which advisors the president surrounds himself with?

    On this episode of Chinese Whispers, The Spectator's China podcast, assistant editor Cindy Yu talks to deputy editor Freddy Gray and Jordan McGillis, economics editor at the Manhattan Institute's City Journal.

    Produced by Cindy Yu and Patrick Gibbons.
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    30 mins

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Profile Image for MS F

Really interesting

A wide variety of really interesting and thoughtful topics with some great guests every week

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Profile Image for Mike Williams

Best there is

if you're interested in China, you need to listen to this podcast. All there is to say

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Profile Image for David Plummer

Brilliant podcast...

... I'd like to see more podcasts like this from the Spectator. It would be fantastic if the Spectator created a podcast about India.

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