Podcasts about neysun

This week’s Sinica was recorded at UPenn’s Center for Study on Contemporary China. Jeremy and Kaiser speak with three prominent scholars on China: Sheena Greitens, associate professor of political science at the University of Missouri, Rory Truex, assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, and Neysun Mahboubi, research scholar at the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania. The group tackles a topic that has long beleaguered China-watching circles: self-censorship. In addition, it focuses on a paper that Sheena and Rory published last summer, Repressive Experiences among China Scholars: New Evidence from Survey Data. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 22:41: Sheena describes the categories in which she and Rory organized “repressive experiences” in China, the center of their research, comprising 13 types of repression divided into three buckets: “The three broad categories that we looked at were restrictions on access to China itself, restriction on access to materials once you’re in China doing research, and monitoring and surveillance of that research by authorities in China.” According to their research, 20-25 percent of those interviewed had difficulty accessing archived materials, and 10 percent of visiting China scholars had been “invited” by authorities to speak with them and explain their research. When Chinese colleagues and interlocutors at host institutions are included in the sample, the figure jumps to 15 percent. 29:45: Rory’s hypothesis going into this project was that there would be a spike in repressive experiences and research after Xi Jinping’s ascent to power in 2012. Perceptions certainly trend in that direction. However, data from their research didn’t reveal major temporal trends related to these repressive experiences, with one caveat: “I talk to people who do a lot of fieldwork, and they say it’s actually much harder even to have interviews at all anymore. The one thing where there was a temporal trend was access to archives. If you talk to historians, they’ll talk a lot about how the archives are being sanitized, and projects, books, and dissertations that were feasible 10 or 15 years ago are no longer feasible today.” 48:05: What exactly is self-censorship? Neysun, Sheena, and Rory all take slightly differing views on what characterizes it. Rory discusses the calculus behind self-censorship, and identifies external stimuli that may have an impact on research and published materials in the United States: “We might be at the opposite [point of the problem], where the professional incentives [of researching contentious topics], plus the political environment in the United States are such that saying anything positive, or even neutral about the Communist Party is difficult to do, and difficult to publish.” 1:08:59: What role do China-watchers play in the larger conversation that, in the modern era, seems to be undergoing constant recalibration? What of the dichotomy among China-watchers, à la hawks versus doves? Here, Neysun, Sheena, and Rory all offer insight into these questions and suggestions on the way forward. Recommendations: Jeremy: Two jazz albums, Live at the Pershing, by Ahmad Jamal, a live recording from 1958, and Money Jungle, a studio album by Duke Ellington. Neysun: Evening Chats in Beijing: Probing China’s Predicament, by Perry Link. Sheena: Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westwood, and Harry and the Terrible Whatzit, by Dick Gackenbach. Rory: The website www.chinachange.org, a website that provides reports, commentary, and analysis on human rights in China. Kaiser: Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, by Sulmaan Wasif Khan.

This week, we feature the second half of an extensive interview (first part here) with Shelley Rigger, a political scientist at Davidson College and the leading U.S. expert on the politics of Taiwan. This second half of the interview, which covers the history of Taiwan from the 1990s to the present, was conducted by Neysun Mahboubi of the UPenn Center for the Study of Contemporary China Podcast (one of our favorite China podcasts), and is republished here with the Center’s permission. What to listen for on this week’s Sinica Podcast: 3:39: Shelley and Neysun discuss the nature of the relationship between Taiwan and China in the early 1990s, with identify the opponents and proponents of unification with the mainland. Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國 Jiǎng Jīng-guó, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, who succeeded his father as premier) allowed for veterans of the Chinese civil war to return to the mainland on humanitarian visits. These veterans were accompanied by their children, who saw economic opportunities on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. Shelley: “They get off the plane, and what Dad sees is, ‘I don’t recognize my hometown.’ What the son or son-in-law sees is, ‘This is perfect for my business.’” 17:55: What is it about Taiwanese independence that makes it such a contentious topic for officials in Beijing? What has been the result of the social, economic, and cultural interactions between Taiwan and the mainland since the 1990s? What role did Taiwanese investment in China play in the ’90s, and what about Chinese investment in Taiwan in the 21st century? Shelley and Neysun, Taiwan and China scholars respectively, talk through these questions. 33:49: Are there red lines in Beijing on the topic of Taiwanese independence? What are the primary points of inflection and contention in the relationship? What effect does a U.S. presence in Taiwan have on the Taiwan-P.R.C. relationship? Shelley explains: “Are we going to remind Beijing that we are in it in that way, and that in some sense the inability to solve this problem [of independence] that they have chosen for themselves is our fault? Are we going to put that right up in their faces, or are we going to say, ‘Taiwan is okay. We’re okay. We don’t need to, as my dad says, kick the skunk.’” 38:51: What about the U.S.-Taiwan relationship under the current U.S. administration? The phone call between Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文 Cài Yīng-wén) and then president-elect Trump, which was intended to be private, certainly strained the relationship after being picked up by international media and tweets by Trump blaming Taiwan for the ensuing debacle that unfolded. Shelley: “The other thing about this administration that’s especially worrisome from the Taiwan perspective is that it’s very unpredictable, as you said, and so the possibility that Taiwan could be a bargaining chip or introduced into some transaction is ever-present…” 51:58: Taiwanese identity, and its role in the world, has undergone seismic changes throughout its history. Shelley points out that the discussion within the island nation has somewhat settled, but not without certain reservations: “The debate over identity that was raging in Taiwan in the 1990s and 2000s is pretty settled on the idea that, with the exception of the indigenous peoples and the ever-growing number of immigrants to Taiwan, our roots are in China…but that does not need to define us politically, and our community, the community of shared fate or common destiny that we belong to as Taiwanese, is specific to this island…”

Over the past 16 years, there has emerged in China a community of self-identified "rights defense" (weiquan) lawyers, akin to "cause lawyers" in the United States, who select cases and frame legal advocacy with a goal of achieving wider societal impact.  Once celebrated in official discourse, these lawyers have increasingly come under scrutiny and pressure by the Chinese Party-state, that has intensified despite official promotion of "rule of law" concepts since the CCP Central Committee’s Fourth Plenum in 2014.  In this episode, scholar and activist Teng Biao, one of China’s earliest and most famous weiquan lawyers, discusses with Neysun Mahboubi the history and current predicament of "rights defense" lawyering in China, and charts possible future directions for this work.  The episode was recorded on April 11, 2018. Dr. Teng Biao is an academic lawyer and a human rights activist.  He was formerly a Lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law, in Beijing.  Since first coming to wide public attention in connection with the Sun Zhigang incident in 2003, he has provided counsel in numerous human rights cases, including those of activists Chen Guangcheng and Hu Jia, religious freedom claims, and death penalty appeals.  He has also co-founded two groups that have combined research with advocacy in human rights cases, the Open Constitution Initiative (Gongmeng) and China Against the Death Penalty.  Most recently, he has visited at Harvard Law School, Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, and NYU’s US-Asia Law Institute.  He maintains an active blog in Chinese and you can also follow him on Twitter @tengbiao. Music credit: "Salt" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com  Special thanks to Nick Marziani, Justin Melnick, and Kaiser Kuo

Chairman Mao famously proclaimed that “women hold up half the sky,” and there are many ways in which women’s status, rights, and opportunities have improved under CCP rule.  That said, patriarchal ideas about the role of women have continued to find robust expression in China, in different and evolving ways, since 1949 and through the reform & opening period.  In this episode, Brown University sociologist Yun Zhou discusses with Neysun Mahboubi the landscape of gender inequality in China, with special attention to the implications of the one-child policy and its repeal, as well as the Chinese #MeToo movement and feminist advocacy more generally.  The episode was recorded on November 5, 2018. Yun Zhou received her PhD in Sociology from Harvard University.  She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University’s Population Studies and Training Center.  Her research examines social inequality through the lens of gender, marriage, family, and reproduction.  Her most recent work on China’s universal two-child policy, “The Dual Demands: Gender Equity and Fertility Intentions after the One-Child Policy,” was just published in the Journal of Contemporary China.  Dr. Zhou also writes extensively for popular audiences on the topics of gender inequality, sexual violence, and reproductive rights in China.  Her work has been featured in Tengxun Dajia, Pengpai, Renwu, The South China Morning Post, and Boston Metro, among other outlets.  She has also served as a volunteer with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center since 2016.  You can follow her at @yunjulietzhou. Music credit: "Salt" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com  Special thanks to Nick Marziani, Kaiser Kuo, and Yue Hou

The Chinese government is currently in the process of dismantling the family planning policies which it introduced in the 1970s, and developed alongside its program of reform & opening over the past 40 years—which are most famously associated with the one-child limit for most Chinese families, that was finally converted into a universal two-child limit starting in 2016.  In so doing, the government is attempting to defuse a ticking demographic time bomb, that is not entirely the fault of the one-child policy, but was certainly accelerated by its prolonged tenure.  Considering this looming crisis makes it a particularly appropriate time to ask why and how the one-child policy was introduced in the first place, why it has taken so long to abolish, and what lessons can be drawn that might be used to improve Chinese governance in the future.  In this episode, Neysun Mahboubi invites sociologist Wang Feng of the University of California—a leading expert on global demography, aging, and inequality—to reflect on the history and social impact of China’s family planning policies and their social impact.  The episode was recorded on March 22, 2018. Wang Feng is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine.  His research focuses on social inequality in post-socialist societies, global demographic change, and migration in China.  His books include Creating Wealth and Poverty in Postsocialist China (co-editor, with Deborah Davis; Stanford University Press 2008), Boundaries and Categories: Rising Inequality in Post-Socialist Urban China (Stanford University Press 2007), and One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000 (co-author, with James Z. Lee; Harvard University Press 1999).  He also has served as Professor at Tsinghua University, in Beijing, and as a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution. Music credit: "Salt" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com  Special thanks to Nick Marziani, Justin Melnick, and Kaiser Kuo

What explains Taiwan’s outsized presence in our news headlines, especially over the first two years of the Trump administration?  What can be learned from its raucous process of democratization over the past thirty years?  How will it continue to forge its unexpected identity, against the backdrop of China’s ever-deepening shadow?  In this episode, Davidson College political scientist Shelley Rigger, one of the foremost authorities on Taiwan’s domestic politics and international standing, discusses these questions with Neysun Mahboubi, in relaying the dramatic modern story of Taiwan, and what it reflects about shifts in global ordering over time.  The episode was recorded on March 16, 2018. Shelley Rigger is the Brown Professor of East Asian Politics, and Assistant Dean for Educational Policy, at Davidson College.  She is also a Senior Fellow with the Asia Program of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, in Philadelphia.  Prof. Rigger is the author of Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse (Rowman and Littlefield, 2011), as well as two books on Taiwan’s domestic politics, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (Routledge 1999) and From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2001).  She has also published articles on Taiwan’s domestic politics, the national identity issue in Taiwan-China relations, and related topics.  Her current research studies the effects of cross-strait economic interactions on Taiwanese people's perceptions of mainland China. Music credit: "Salt" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com  Special thanks to Nick Marziani and Anthony Tao

Amidst various commentaries on the 10th anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake, this past summer, a prominent theme has been the sense of possibility for civil society in China that was initially generated by the outpouring of social volunteerism, unprecedented in Chinese history, which followed the disaster.  That earlier optimism about civil society appears less robust in China today, within an overall context of further tightening of the space for independent social organizations and advocacy in recent years.  In this episode, Emory University sociologist Bin Xu discusses with Neysun Mahboubi the general landscape of civil society and civic engagement in China, through the particular lens of his widely celebrated new book on the Sichuan earthquake.  The episode was recorded on February 22, 2018. Bin Xu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Emory University.  His book, “The Politics of Compassion: the Sichuan Earthquake and Civic Engagement in China,” published by Stanford University Press, combines cultural sociology with extensive interviews to examine how engaged citizens acted on the ground in the aftermath of the earthquake, how they understood the meaning of their actions, and how the wider political context shaped both.  Reviewed as “riveting, provocative, and ultimately heart breaking,” and as “required reading for all students of contemporary Chinese society and politics,” the book has been awarded the Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book in the Sociology of Culture from the American Sociological Association (2018).  In addition to this book, Prof. Xu’s work has appeared in many of the leading journals in sociology and China studies.  He also was selected as one of 21 Public Intellectuals in the likewise named fellowship program of the National Committee on US-China Relations for 2016-18. Music credit: "Salt" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com  Special thanks to Nick Marziani and Justin Melnick

Current headlines about how authoritarian regimes have come to harness and even weaponize the internet may obscure how this technology, at one time, was more typically understood to be a democratizing force, across a range of different contexts. In the early days of Chinese cyberspace, for example, popular expression on various internet forums seemed to herald a new stage in political activism, that was pressing the boundaries of traditional state control. In this episode, University of Pennsylvania Professor Guobin Yang, the preeminent scholar of the sociology of the internet in China, discusses with Neysun Mahboubi the evolution of social media platforms on the Chinese internet, over the past 20 years, and their changing political implications. The episode was recorded on March 1, 2018. Guobin Yang is the Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of Sociology, at the University of Pennsylvania.  His research generally covers social movements, cultural sociology, political sociology, digital media, global communication, and modern China. His prolific scholarship includes the classic "The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online" (2009) and, more recently, "The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China" (2016). He is the editor or co-editor of four additional books which explore similar themes. He is also active on social media, and tweets at @Yangguobin.  Music credit: "Salt" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com  Special thanks to Nick Marziani and Alex Schein