Chinese Whispers

As Chinese Whispers comes to an end, here is a compilation of some of the best discussions Cindy Yu has had across the podcast to understand modern China and President Xi. On this episode you can hear from: journalist Bill Hayton on what it means to be Chinese (1:10); writer and actor Mark Kitto and author Alex Ash on being foreign in China (13:07); professor of international history Elizabeth Ingleson on whether China's economic boom was made in America (23:08); professor of Chinese studies and former diplomat Kerry Brown and professor of history Steve Tsang on how the cultural revolution shaped China's leaders today (47:05); journalist Bill Bishop and professor of political science Victor Shih on how Xi took complete control at the 20th party congress in 2022 (58:13); journalist and advisor Noah Barkin on the relationship between Europe and China (1:10:04); and, professor of China studies William Kirby and former diplomat Charles Parton on why China won't invade Taiwan (1:19:56). To stay abreast of Cindy's latest work, subscribe to her free Substack at chinesewhispers.substack.com Produced by Cindy Yu and Patrick Gibbons.

** Chinese Whispers is coming to an end. Later this year, Cindy Yu will be joining The Times and The Sunday Times to write a regular column on China. To stay abreast of her latest work, subscribe to her free Substack at chinesewhispers.substack.com ** The term ‘old friend of the Chinese people' might seem a colloquial, almost sentimental, phrase to appear in official diplomatic language, but in the Chinese context, those words have a very specific meaning. Most often, they refer to high profile foreigners whose actions have helped the Chinese Communist Party in one way or another. The most famous of these is Henry Kissinger, who led the way for American rapprochement with China. That the CCP gives various foreigners this honour is revealing of China's priorities over the decades, but also of its attempts to co-opt foreign forces to its cause. Think back to the United Front strategy, which we looked at on the podcast earlier in the year. To discuss this honorific, I'm joined Professor Anne-Marie Brady, a China expert at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, who was among the first to look at China's old friends as a serious political concept some 20 years ago, and Ryan Ho Kilpatrick, a journalist based in Hong Kong.

** Chinese Whispers is coming to an end. Later this year, Cindy Yu will be joining The Times and The Sunday Times to write a regular column on China. To stay abreast of her latest work, subscribe to her free Substack at chinesewhispers.substack.com ** It's easy to forget that, as recently as the start of this century, the US was China's biggest ally. Washington saw Beijing as a necessary bulwark against Moscow, and consistently supported China's entry into the world economy ever since rapprochement in the 1970s, including its accession to the World Trade Organisation. These days, the relationship couldn't be more different. Why have relations cooled quite so fast? When was the turning point? And can we now say that rapprochement was a strategic mistake from the US? Bob Davis is a former senior editor at the Wall Street Journal, who was posted to China between 2011 and 2014. In recent years, he has been conducting a long running series of interviews - with dozens of high level officials over successive American administrations - for the online magazine, The Wire China. He has interviewed defense secretaries, ambassadors, national security advisors, treasury secretaries and more. Now, these interviews have been collated into a new e-book released by The Wire China: Broken Engagement. Through these interviews, we can see the changing direction of US-China relations through the eyes and words of those at the very heart of America's decisions. Bob joins this episode to tell us all about it.

Walking around Taipei a couple of years ago, I spotted a familiar sight – a bronze statue of a moustachioed man, cane in his right hand, left leg striding forward. The man is Sun Yat-sen, considered modern China's founding father. I recognised the statue because a larger version of it stands in the city centre of Nanjing, the mainland Chinese city that I was born and raised in. That one figure can be celebrated across the strait, both in Communist PRC and Taiwanese ROC, is the curious legacy left behind by Sun. March 12th this year is the centenary of Sun's death, so what better opportunity to look at his legacy, and who better to discuss Sun than the historian Rana Mitter, who needs no introduction with Chinese Whispers listeners. Further listening: Japan's role in the making of modern China What is it to be ‘Chinese'?

Just before the end of 2024, Chinese state media Xinhua slipped out an announcement – the long discussed mega-dam in Medog County, Tibet, has been greenlit. When built, it will generate three times more energy than China's Three Gorges dam, currently the largest in the world. The Xinhua write-up gave few other details, but the news has caused reverberations across Asia as the river on which the dam would be built, the Yarlung Tsangpo, flows into both India and Bangladesh. The existence of the dam could, as we will hear in this episode, have extensive impact on these downriver countries. To break down the complicated water politics of the region, I'm joined today by Chinese Whispers regular, the journalist Isabel Hilton, who founded the climate NGO Dialogue Earth (formerly known as China Dialogue); and Neeraj Singh Manhas, an expert on transboundary rivers and Asian water politics, currently at South Korea's Parley Policy Initiative.

Beginning in the first Trump presidency and expanded under Joe Biden, the US has taken a strategy of technologically containing China through restricting its access to cutting edge semiconductors. As Chinese Whispers has looked at before, these chips form the backbone of rapid advances in AI, telecoms, smartphones, weaponry and more. Washington's aim was clear: to widen the technological gap between the two powers But has this strategy worked? Lately this has become a hot topic of debate as Chinese tech companies such as Huawei and DeepSeek have nevertheless made technical strides. Some even argue that the export controls have spurred on Chinese innovation and self-reliance. In this episode of Chinese Whispers, two very informed and smart guests debate this issue. Ryan Fedasiuk is U.S. Director of The Future Society, an independent nonprofit organization focused on AI governance, and former Advisor for U.S.-China Bilateral Affairs at the US State Department. Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Michigan State University and a start-up founder. He also hosts the podcast, Manifold. Produced by Cindy Yu and Joe Bedell-Brill.

** Chinese Whispers is nominated in the Political Podcast Awards 2025. Vote for it to win the People's Choice category here ** When Chinese spy scandals break, like the latest involving Prince Andrew and his Chinese business associate, one organisation often comes up – the United Front. Mao Zedong had dubbed it one of the Chinese Communist Party's three ‘magic weapons'. So what is this mysterious ‘United Front' and how important is it to advancing the CCP's agenda? Joining the podcast is Charlie Parton, a former British diplomat in Beijing and a special advisor on China to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. He is now chief advisor to the Council on Geostrategy's China Observatory.

** Chinese Whispers is nominated in the Political Podcast Awards 2025. Vote for it to win the People's Choice category here ** Among the casualties of Donald Trump's trade war with China in his first presidency was the telecoms giant Huawei. Founded by former military engineer Ren Zhengfei, the company is a world-leading manufacturer of everything from telecoms equipment to smartphones. But it fell foul of the Trump administration as it tried to become integral to the world's rollout of 5G, leading to a backlash in the West and even the house arrest of Ren's daughter. At the centre of the row is a suspicion that Huawei is essentially a state-owned company, working at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. So as Trump prepares to go back to the White House, this episode tries to get to the bottom of the telecoms giant. Is it an arm of the Chinese state? How has it found such world dominating success? Can it survive a second Trump presidency? Cindy Yu speaks to Eva Dou, technology reporter for the Washington Post. Her new book is the House of Huawei: Inside the Secret World of China's Most Powerful Company.

Why do so many Chinese people choose such curious English names? You must have come across this phenomenon – whether they are names from a past century, or surnames, nouns or even adjectives used as first names, or words that aren't real at all. I have a particular interest in this because my English name – Cindy – isn't exactly in vogue these days. You might think this is a bit of a trivial question, but I think the question of English names goes deeper than just some odd words. I think these names reveal something about the China that gave rise to them. So I was pleased to come across another China watcher recently who is also obsessed by the question. Peter Hessler is an award winning journalist whose 2001 book River Town was highly influential for its depiction of life in a changing China. I spoke to him recently upon the publication of his latest book, Other Rivers. Tune in to hear where I also reveal the origins of my English name.

More than a year after Xi Jinping purged two senior generals in the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force unit, China's investigation into its military seems to be ongoing, with more scalps taken. In recent weeks, Miao Hua, another senior general who had been a member of the Central Military Commission, has been suspended; while reports abound that the country's current defence minister, Dong Jun, is under investigation too. If suspended, Dong would be the third consecutive defence minister that Xi has removed. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose one defence minister may be regarded a misfortune; to lose three looks like carelessness. So what is happening at the top of the PLA? Is all of this movement a sign of Xi failing to get on top of corruption within the military or, in fact, a sign that he is gearing up for serious military action, perhaps over Taiwan? Just how effective have the military reforms that Xi instigated in 2015 been? Joining the podcast today are Oriana Skylar Mastro, an expert on the Chinese military at Stanford University and author of Upstart: How China Became a Great Power, and Demetri Sevastopulo, US-China correspondent for the Financial Times.

The Darien Gap is a 60 mile stretch of jungle that hundreds of thousands of migrants from all over South America trek through in order to reach the US-Mexico border. From there, they enter America in search of better lives. These are usually migrants from Venezuela, or Colombia or Panama. But in recent years, a new group of people have appeared at the border, having paid people smugglers and hacked through the jungle. They often bring young children, clutch on to smartphones with which they check their routes, and watch social media videos that set out, step by step, the journey they are embarking on. These are the Chinese, which in the last two years have been the fastest growing group of migrants being encountered at America's southern border – over 37,000 last year, up from under 4,000 the year before. This year, there have already been over 21,000. What brings them, and how unusual is this method of emigration when it comes to people from China? On this podcast are Professor Meredith Oyen, an expert on US-China migration, and Amy Hawkins, senior China correspondent at the Guardian, who has come across a similar phenomenon on Europe's borders.

There have been reports that over 11,000 North Korean troops are present in Russia and preparing to take part in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. While not acknowledged by either country, if true, this would mark a historic milestone: the first East Asian troops present in Europe since the Mongol Empire.  North Korea shares land borders with three countries: China, South Korea, and Russia. Despite this, the North Korea-Russia relationship has received less attention geopolitically. With Russia's increasing international isolation, it's pushed Putin to seek alternative alliances. What does this tell us about the geopolitics of the region? How aware was China of North Korea's decision to help Putin? And could the incoming Trump administration impact relations? Historian John Delury joins Cindy Yu to try and disentangle these complicated diplomatic relations. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Cindy Yu.

** This episode of Chinese Whispers was recorded in front of a live audience as a part of the Battle of Ideas Festival 2024. ** Is China in decline? I was born in China in the 90s, and growing up it felt like the future was always going to be brighter. My parents were wealthier, more educated, better travelled than their parents, and it seemed assured that my generation would only have even better life chances. But in the 2020s, China's economic growth has slowed down. Some of the once-bright spots in its economy, like real estate, are in slow motion meltdown. In the last couple of years foreign direct investment into the country has been falling at a record pace. The youth unemployment rate from this summer shows that just under a fifth of people under 24 are jobless. So how much of this is a considerable decline in the progress that China has made in the last miraculous half century, or is it just perhaps 'western bias' that's blinding us to what is still a very positive picture? On this live podcast, I discuss this question with a lively and experienced panel of China-watchers: Tom Miller, a senior analyst at Gavekal Research and author of two books on China; Isabel Hilton, a veteran international reporter and founder of the website China Dialogue; and Austin Williams, an architect by training who is also the author of numerous books on China, and teaches at the Xi'An Jiaotong-Liverpool University.

** On October 19, Cindy Yu and a panel of special guests will be recording a live Chinese Whispers at London's Battle of Ideas festival, talking the latest on China's economic slowdown and asking – what are the social and political implications? Is China in decline? Chinese Whispers listeners can get a 20 per cent discount on the ticket price with the code WHISPERS24. Click here to find out more and get your ticket. ** In the early 2000s, Desmond Shum and his wife, Whitney Duan, were among the richest people in China, with fingers in various real estate, infrastructure and hospitality projects. They also had some of China's most powerful people on speed dial – including the family of then-premier Wen Jiabao. But that all changed in 2017 when Whitney was disappeared by the Chinese state. Desmond now lives in the UK where he published a memoir in 2021, Red Roulette, and is now an analyst and commentator on Chinese politics. On this interview, we discuss why Shum thinks Whitney was the victim of a power struggle involving Xi Jinping, the reality of politics and corruption in the China of the 2000s, and how Xi has destroyed the economic trajectory of the once-booming People's Republic.

** On October 19, Cindy Yu and a panel of special guests will be recording a live Chinese Whispers at London's Battle of Ideas festival, talking the latest on China's economic slowdown and asking – what are the social and political implications? Is China in decline? Chinese Whispers listeners can get a 20 per cent discount on the ticket price with the code WHISPERS24. Click here to find out more and get your ticket. ** The release of ChatGPT in late 2022 brought home the sheer potential of artificial intelligence and the speed with which developments are being made. It made AI the hot topic from business to politics and, yes, journalism.  This was true in China too, despite the fact that ChatGPT has never been allowed to be used within Chinese borders. Instead, China has a rich landscape of homegrown AI products, where progress is being led by tech giants like search engine Baidu and TikTok's owner, ByteDance. So already we are seeing a bifurcation in the AI worlds of China and the West – just like with social media and e-commerce. This episode will peek over the Great Firewall to update listeners on China's progress on AI. The country is fast becoming an AI superpower even as it limits the freedoms its generative models can have and keeps out some of the world's leading companies. Could this be the next arms race? I'm joined by the researcher Matt Sheehan, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a long time watcher of China's tech scene.

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.

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?

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.

Whenever I go back to China, I try to eat as much as I can – delicious Chinese food that I can't have outside of the country, whether childhood favourites or the latest food trends. But I'm often struck by my relatives and friends who turn their noses up at many of these delicious dishes – they commonly say ‘不敢吃' – ‘I'm scared to eat it'. The Chinese middle class can now be very discerning about the food that they eat, and who can blame them? In the last twenty years, there seems to have been a steady stream of food safety and hygiene scandals – most infamously melamine-laced milk powder in 2008, which poisoned tens of thousands of babies. Since then, we've heard about pesticides being put into steamed buns to improve their texture, used cooking oil being retrieved from gutters to be reused, and lamb meat that might contain rat or fox. The latest scandal, breaking over the last couple of months, is that of fuel tankers being used to carry cooking oil without the tankers being cleaned in between.  So what gives? Are these scandals a particularly Chinese phenomenon? Why hasn't government regulation or punishment worked? And how does this impact political credibility in the eyes of the middle class? I'm joined by two brilliant guests to discuss all of these questions and more. Dali Yang is a political scientist and sinologist at the University of Chicago, whose research has focused on Chinese regulations when it comes to food and medicine. His latest book is Wuhan: How the Covid-19 Outbreak in China Spiralled Out of Control. James Palmer is deputy editor at Foreign Policy and author of numerous books on China. He worked for years as a journalist inside China. For further listening, check out the Chinese Whispers episode on the gig economy – another huge labour rights issue in the country today: Algorithms and lockdowns: how China's gig economy works.

‘Swifties', as Taylor Swift's fans are known across the world, are extremely dedicated to the cause, and often estimated to drive up local economies wherever they flock, and Chinese fans are no different. Swift didn't perform in China on the latest global tour, but that didn't stop more wealthy fans flying to Singapore to see her; or the less wealthy, going to cinemas in China to watch the Taylor Swift Eras Tour documentary – which has broken box office records in China. All this got me thinking – how popular is American, and western, pop music in China in general? Is it considered mainstream, or something a bit more indie compared to Chinese pop? Is the language barrier a problem, or censorship? On this episode I'm joined by two people very much in the know. Alex Taggart is Head of International at the music management company Outdustry, who has previously worked as a DJ and a Nightlife columnist in China. Jocelle Koh also works in the music industry and founded the media platform Asian Pop Weekly. They tell me about Chinese opera-style covers of Adele and explain how an American missile system brought down K-Pop in China... We also mention a range of our favourite viral videos featuring western pop in China. Links here: Vlogger Lorelei in Singapore Countryside Nicki Minaj 'Low low low your boat' Last Emperor Puyi dancing to Harry Styles Chinese opera Adele

The EU and US are turning up the pressure on Chinese made electric cars, as I discussed with my guest Finbarr Bermingham on the last episode.  On this episode, I want to take a closer look at how China has come to dominate the global electric car market. Chinese EVs make up 60 per cent of worldwide sales, and a third of global exports. Its leading brand, BYD, now regularly gives Tesla a run for its money in terms of number of cars sold.  How much of a role do subsidies play, versus other factors like its control of rare earths or lower labour costs? Is there really an overcapacity issue that suggests a flooding of Chinese cars globally? On this episode, I'm joined by Zeyi Yang, China tech reporter at MIT Technology Review, who is an expert on the genealogy of China's EV industry.

The EU and China are in the foothills of a trade war. After a seven month investigation, the European Commission has announced tariffs of up to 38 per cent on electric cars from China, citing that they've found ‘subsidies in every part of the supply chain'. In retaliation, China has ramped up its own investigations into imports from the EU. This, of course, comes after the US has announced its own 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric cars. Listeners will know that Chinese electric cars are becoming ever more competitive. In just three years, the value of the EU's imports of Chinese EVs have surged tenfold – from $1.6 billion in 2020 to $11.5 billion last year. The Commission has warned that Chinese electric cars could make up 15 per cent of the EU market by next year.  What are the ramifications of these new tariffs? Is there anything that will reverse this new tide of protectionism? On this episode, I'm talking to Finbarr Bermingham, Europe correspondent at the South China Morning Post, who patches in from Brussels.

In less than a month's time, Britain may well have a new prime minister – and a different ruling party. Under 14 years of the Conservative party, the UK's approach to China has swung from the sycophancy of the golden era to fear and loathing under Liz Truss, stabilising in the last couple of years to a compete but engage approach, all while public opinion on China has hardened following the Hong Kong protests and the pandemic. What will a new government bring? Will the managerialism of Keir Starmer change UK-China relations much from the managerialism of Rishi Sunak? This is not a hypothetical question as Labour looks set to win the election and the question, now, is how big the Conservative losses will be. I'm joined in this episode by someone who has spent years looking at this issue. Sam Hogg is a political analyst who has covered China as seen by Westminster for years, under the newsletter he founded, Beijing to Britain. He last came on the podcast to discuss Liz Truss's views on China – a lot has changed then. Produced by Cindy Yu and Joe Bedell-Brill.

Since 1978, China has changed beyond recognition thanks to its economic boom. 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty as GDP per capita has grown eighty times. Some 60 per cent of the country now live in cities and towns, compared to just 18 per cent before. But you know all this. What's less talked about is what that does to the people and families who live through these changes. What is it like to have such a different life to your parents before you, and your grandparents before then? How have people made the most of the boom, and what about those who've been left behind? A fascinating new book, Private Revolutions, tells the personal stories of four millennial women who were born as these changes took place. Its author, Yuan Yang, is a former Financial Times journalist and now a Labour party candidate, standing in the next election. She joins this episode. Further listening: Life on the margins: how China's rural deprivation curbs its success, with Professor Scott Rozelle. Produced by Cindy Yu and Joe Bedell-Brill.

Last week, President Xi Jinping visited Serbia. An unexpected destination, you might think, but in fact the links between Beijing and Belgrade go back decades. One event, in particular, has linked the two countries – and became a seminal moment in how the Chinese remember their history. In 1999, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed by US-led Nato forces. Three Chinese nationals died. An accident, the Americans insisted, but few Chinese believed it then, and few do today. The event is still remembered in China, but now, little talked about in the West. Xi's visit was timed to the 25th anniversary of the bombing itself. ‘The China-Serbia friendship, forged with the blood of our compatriots, will stay in the shared memory of the Chinese and Serbian peoples', Xi wrote for a Serbian paper ahead of the visit. So what exactly happened that night in May, and what does the event – and its aftermath – tell us about Chinese nationalism today? Cindy Yu is joined by Peter Gries, Professor of Chinese Politics at Manchester University and author of numerous books on China, including China's New Nationalism: Pride, Politics and Diplomacy.

Last week, President Joe Biden finally signed into law a bill that would take TikTok off app stores in the US, eventually rendering the app obsolete there. This is not the end of the saga, as TikTok has vowed to take legal action. In the US, the drive to decouple from Chinese tech continues to rumble on. In this episode, we'll be taking a look at the reverse trend – the Chinese decoupling from American tech. It's a story that tends to go under the radar in light of bans and divestments from the US, but you might be surprised at how much China is cutting out American tech too – and doing it much more quietly. I'm joined by the journalist Liza Lin, who has been following this story in her detailed coverage for the Wall Street Journal. She is also a co-author of Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control. You can also join Cindy Yu at The Spectator's Chinese wine lunch on June 14th. To find out more and buy tickets, visit spectator.co.uk/chinesewine.

When I recently came across a book review asking the question ‘was Marco Polo a "sexpat"?', I knew I had to get its author on to, well, discuss this important question some more. The 13th century Venetian merchant Marco Polo's account of China was one of the earliest and most popular travelogues written on the country. Polo spent years at the court of Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis, and whose family founded the Yuan dynasty in China. My guest today, and the author of that book review, is the historian Jeremiah Jenne. Jeremiah has lived in China for over two decades, and he is also the co-host of the fascinating podcast Barbarians at the Gate, all about Chinese history. He has been doing a series of historical book reviews for the relatively newly established website China Books Review, and in re-reading The Travels of Marco Polo, he noticed that there was a lot of sex. We talk about all of this, of course, but there's a serious point here too. How much do Europeans observe when they go to China and how reliable are their accounts, understood and told through the perspective of the outsider? How much has Marco Polo's portrayal of China moulded the western mindset on the country in the centuries since, and even today? And what does it say about the China of the 13th century that a trio of Venetian merchants could make it to the heart of the Mongol empire?

Over the last week the UK has been rocked by allegations that China was responsible for two cyber attacks in recent years – one on the Electoral Commission, where hackers successfully accessed the open register, which has the details of 40 million voters; and a set of attempts to access the emails of a number of China critics within parliament.  So what do we know about China's cyber capabilities? What are its goals? And now that the UK knows about these attacks, what should we be doing? Joining me on the podcast today is Nigel Inkster, senior advisor for cyber security and China at the think tank IISS, formerly director of operations and intelligence at MI6, and author of China's Cyber Power, a 2016 book on precisely this question. You can also join Cindy Yu at The Spectator's Chinese wine lunch on June 14th. To find out more and buy tickets, visit spectator.co.uk/chinesewine.

In the last episode, I discussed Chinese rural lives with Professor Scott Rozelle. One point he made which particularly stuck with me was the dying out of farming as an occuption – he'd said that most rural people under the age of 35 have never farmed a day in their lives. So that got me thinking, what do they do instead? In this episode I'll be looking at one, very high profile, alternative – vlogging. I've noticed through my hours of scrolling through Chinese social media that there is a huge genre of rural, pastoral content.  This is an interesting phenomenon both for what it says about the rural population today, as well as what it reveals about the – often – urban viewers on the other end. So today I'm joined by Yi-Ling Liu, a writer on Chinese society who has had bylines in the New Yorker, Harper's Magazine and WIRED. She's looked in detail at the phenomenon of the rural influencer. On the episode, we talk about a few of our favourite rural influencers. You can watch Li Ziqi's videos on YouTube here and 王大姐来了 (the middle aged rappers I mention) here.

Too often our stories about China are dictated by the urban experience, probably because journalists inside and outside of China are often based in the big cities; Beijing specifically. Those who live in the cities also tend to be more educated, more privileged, and so able to dominate the global attention more.  That's why I'm particularly keen to hear about the lives of those who still live in the countryside, or at least are still considered ‘rural residents' by the Chinese government. They make up a sizeable proportion of the population, and you'll hear that in my first question to my guest today, we discuss just how big this group is. How do the poorest in China live today, considering the government has announced that there is no more extreme poverty? Just how wide are their gaps in living standards, education, health, compared to their compatriots who live in the cities?  Professor Scott Rozelle joins me on this episode. He is the co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, a developmental economist who has been conducting research in China for over three decades. He is also the co-author of Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China's Rise. Further listening from the archive: Second class citizens: the lives of China's internal migrants: https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/second-class-citizens-the-lives-of-chinas-internal-migrants/ Is China turning away from the world?: https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/is-china-turning-away-from-the-world/ Produced by Cindy Yu and Joe Bedell-Brill.

The Argentinian football star Lionel Messi has been trending on Weibo – and unfortunately, not for a good reason. It all started when Messi sat out a match in Hong Kong earlier this month. His reason – that he was injured – wasn't good enough for some fans, and keyboard nationalists quickly took offence when Messi played in Japan, a few days later. The furore has dominated Chinese social media over the last few weeks, and even led to the cancellation of some upcoming Chinese matches with the Argentinian national team, as authorities demanded an apology from Messi. What a mess. But beyond its seeming triviality, this episode tells us something about the nature of Chinese online nationalism, I think, and it might also shed light on how football works within China. After all, why is it that China, which is so good at so many things, has still failed to turn out a competitive national team? That is the multi-billion yuan question that puzzles football fans within and outside of China. Joining me on the episode this week is Cameron Wilson, an expert on Chinese football and founder of the Wild East Football blog, who has lived in China for almost two decades. Produced by Cindy Yu and Max Mitchell.

At last count, the Chinese Communist Party has 98 million members, more people than the population of Germany. Its membership also continues to grow, making it one of the most successful and resilient political parties of the last a hundred years, perhaps with the exception of India's BJP, which boasts 180 million members. And yet the CCP's track record is strewn with bloody crackdowns and systematic persecution. So what would drive someone to join the CCP, and what accounts for its success? Do party members today all support the atrocities committed by their government? I think these are important questions to ask, because without understanding the answers to them, one couldn't understand China's modern history or its society today.  To delve into the psychology of card carrying communists, I'm joined by two great guests in this week's episode. Xinran Xue is a Chinese journalist, who had a popular radio show in China in the 90s, before moving to the UK and becoming an author of numerous books on China. Her latest book is called The Book of Secrets, which is a memoir of sorts, where her protagonist was one of the founding members of the CCP's intelligence service. I recently reviewed it for The Spectator. Professor Kerry Brown is Director of the Lau China Institute at Kings College London and a former diplomat in Beijing where he worked alongside Chinese government officials for many years. His latest book is China Incorporated: The Politics of a World Where China is Number One. On the episode, we discuss the party membership's divide between the intellectuals and the peasants; how the Cultural Revolution changed the party from an ideological body to a corporate one; and what a new generation of communists might have in store.

Today, the US and China are at loggerheads. There's renewed talk of a Cold War as Washington finds various ways to cut China out of key supply chains and to block China's economic development in areas like semiconductors and renewables. There's trade, of course, but the imbalance in that (some $370 billion in 2022) tilts in China's favour and only serves as another source of ammunition for America's Sinosceptics. China, on the other hand, is also decoupling in its own way, moving fast to cut its reliance on imported technology and energy. At this moment, it seems like US-China tensions are inevitable – but look into the not so ancient history, and you'll find a totally different picture. In fact, when it comes to Communist China's early entry into the global economy, American policymakers and businesspeople were vital in the 1970s and 80s. You could even say that a big part of China's economic success was ‘Made in America'. I'm joined on the podcast by Elizabeth Ingleson, Assistant Professor of International History at the LSE, whose upcoming book contains some very interesting research on this question. It's called Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade. We discuss President Nixon's visit to China and how that opened up decades of American economic support to the Chinese miracle – including at the expense of its own workers.

India is the fifth largest economy in the world, and now has a population larger than China's. It's no surprise, then, that officials in Washington often see India as a powerful non-western bulwark to growing Chinese power. On this podcast, I look at where China and India's rivalry comes from. How much have long-lasting skirmishes on the China-Indian border damaged relations? How have demographics, economic competition and recent international conflicts affected the relationship between the two countries? And are the domestic politics of China and India in fact more similar than most westerners like to admit? I speak to Avinash Paliwal, an international relations expert at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the author of India's Near East: A New History.

Taiwan goes to the polls in just over a month. This is an election that could have wide repercussions, given the island's status as a potential flashpoint in the coming years. The incumbent President, Tsai Ing-wen, is coming to the end of two elected terms, meaning that she cannot run again. Her party's chosen successor is William Lai – Lai Ching-te – who is the current vice president. For most of this year, he has been facing off opposition from the Kuomintang, the biggest opposition party in Taiwan, and the Taiwan People's Party, a third party led by the charismatic Ko Wen-je. Lai remains in the lead with a month to go, but polls show that the KMT is only a few points behind, meaning that an upset is still possible. Since Taiwan became a democracy, it's the KMT that has been the party calling for closer relations to China, and Tsai and Lai's DPP that has been more pro-independence and pro-West. Given Beijing has shut off the hotline with Taipei in protest of the DPP since Tsai was first elected in 2016, if Lai wins in January, relations with Beijing are unlikely to get better. But how can the KMT justify closer relations with China, when it seems like the world is in a different place compared to 2015, the last time the KMT held the presidency? Joining the episode is William Yang, a Taipei-based freelance correspondent, who has written for Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, the Guardian and the Times.

Across the span of China, a country as big as Europe, there are countless regional dialects and accents – perhaps even languages. Often, they're mutually unintelligible. The Chinese call these ‘fangyan', and each Chinese person will likely be able to speak at least one fangyan, while also understanding Standard Mandarin, the official language of the People's Republic. It means that the Chinese are more multilingual than you might think. But it also means that the question of language is inherently a political one. Standard Mandarin has a relatively short history, created by the country's founding fathers to unify the spoken word in a huge country. But with the ubiquity of Standard Mandarin now, is fangyan at risk of dying out? Joining the episode is Gina Tam, a historian and author of Dialect and Nationalism in China.

Controlling history is key to the Chinese Communist Party's control of the country. Whether it's playing up the ‘century of humiliation', or whitewashing past mistakes like the Great Leap Forward or the Tiananmen Protests, the Party expends huge effort and resources on controlling the narrative. That's why it's so important and interesting to look at those Chinese people who are documenting the bits of history that the Party doesn't want you to know about. They interview survivors from Communist labour camps, or keep their own memoirs of the Cultural Revolution, and try to keep the memory of past horrors alive through film, magazines and paintings. A new book called Sparks documents their work. Its author is Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and long time China journalist. Ian calls these people the ‘underground historians'. He joins this episode of Chinese Whispers. Visit https://minjian-danganguan.org/ to see some of their work documented, in an upcoming website founded by Ian and others. Produced by Cindy Yu and Patrick Gibbons.

All cultures care about their cuisine, but the Chinese must have one of the most food-obsessed cultures in the world. It may be because we have the best food... Those listeners of Chinese Whispers who've been to China will know exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you who haven't, you may have come across the classic Chinese takeaway with dishes like sweet and sour pork, or you may like Cantonese dim sum, and some of you may be big fans of Sichuanese cooking. But China has so much more to offer than what has made across into the West's Chinese restaurants. Thankfully, that's changing and quite fast. Part of the education campaign to bring more of the diversity and richness of Chinese cuisine to the West is the work of people like Fuchsia Dunlop. She trained to cook in Chengdu and is one of the most engaging and thoughtful writers on Chinese cuisine in the English language. I'm delighted to be joined by her on the podcast today, to mark the publication of her new book, Invitation to a Banquet, which is all about the history, meaning and diversity of Chinese cuisine.

When China brokered a historic detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran earlier this year, it seemed that a new phase in world history – and certainly in Chinese foreign policy – had opened up. Instead of the US being a policeman of the world, it was the rising power, China, that was stepping into that role. Whereas Chinese foreign policy had previously only really cared about promoting trade and silencing dissidents, it seemed that perhaps, now, Beijing was taking a more leadership role in global diplomacy and security issues. And yet the events of the last week and China's response to them have shown that perhaps the country isn't ready for that responsibility just yet. In response to the horrors unfolding in Israel and later Gaza, Beijing has given only lukewarm statements, calling for 'relevant parties to remain calm, exercise restraint and immediately end the hostilities to protect civilians'. At no point has it condemned Hamas by name. So what does this mean for China's grander ambitions in the Middle East? With me to discuss is Tuvia Gering. During peacetime, his full time role is as a researcher on China and the Middle East, with the Israeli thinktank the Institute for National Security Studies and he is also a nonresident fellow in the Atlantic Council. But in the last week, as with all Israelis, his life has been changed forever. He's now been called up for active duty. What you're about to hear is an incredibly well informed but raw contribution from an expert whose research interests have come crashing into his real life.

In 2010, David Cameron and George Osborne ushered in what they called ‘a golden era' with China, the world's rising superpower. They argued that Britain could be China's best friend in the West. Thirteen years later, after a global pandemic, up to a million interned in Xinjiang, and a Communist Party General Secretary seemingly keen to roll back democratic progress in the mainland and in Hong Kong, that policy looks ill-thought-out, at best. But are we at risk of swinging the other direction now, going from ignorance to hysteria within a handful of years? Did we get China wrong, and do we keep getting China wrong? Is Britain now losing influence in China? On this episode, live from Conservative party conference, I'm joined by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, Sophia Gaston, Head of Foreign Policy at Policy Exchange, and Sam Hogg, editor of the Beijing to Britain newsletter.

Two years ago, Richard Moore, head of MI6, said that China was now the organisation's ‘single greatest priority'. Parliamentarians and the British public have been starkly reminded of this by last week's news that a parliamentary researcher had been arrested on suspicion of spying for China. On this episode, we won't be commenting on the ins and outs of that case, but talking more generally about Chinese espionage. What forms does it take, what are its goals and how successful are the Chinese secret services at achieving those? I'm joined by a brilliant and knowledgeable guest. Nigel Inkster is the former director of operations and intelligence for MI6. He has served in Beijing and Hong Kong, and is now the senior adviser on cyber security and China at the think tank IISS. Produced by Cindy Yu.

For thousands of years, Confucianism has run through the fabric of Chinese society, politics and culture. Decades of Communism has taken its toll on China, so can it still be considered a Confucian country? Joining the episode is one of the world's leading experts on the philosophy, Professor Daniel Bell. In 2017, he was appointed the dean of Shandong University, an unusual appointment for a foreigner in China but one based on his expertise in Confucianism, in the province of Confucius's birth. His new book, The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese university, details some of the ups and downs of his time in that position.