Best Sichuan Podcasts (2025)

1
Jing Gao : The Fly By Jing Revolution. From Sichuan to Success 1:19:42

10d ago1:19:42

1:19:42

The journey from rootlessness to cultural pride isn't a straight line - just ask Jing Gao. Born in Chengdu, China, the founder of Fly By Jing spent her childhood moving across continents, adopting a Western name and working tirelessly to blend in as the only Asian kid in her schools. But a remarkable transformation began when she reconnected with h…

1
Chinese Cooking Demystified: Chris Thomas and Stephanie Li visit Shaxi! 1:17:54

22h ago1:17:54

1:17:54

This week on Sinica: On my final two days in Shaxi in Yunnan, Chris Thomas and Stephanie Li, the hosts of the marvelous YouTube channel Chinese Cooking Demystified, joined me for some cooking and lots of chatting about food! We recorded this show together and focus our conversation on their heroic attempt at a taxonomy of different Chinese cuisines…

1
Adam Tooze Climbs the China Learning Curve 1:03:28

15d ago1:03:28

1:03:28

I'm in Shaxi, a wonderful little town in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, and I was joined here by the Columbia economic historian Adam Tooze, who shared his thoughts on what he sees happening on the ground in China. Adam's been in China for the last month and reflects on his experiences learning about the country — and even attempting the langu…

1
Seth Godin : Strategy, AI, and Finding Your Path 1:28:34

24d ago1:28:34

1:28:34

What drives our creative pursuits, and how do we navigate a world where entire industries are being transformed overnight? In this illuminating conversation with marketing legend Seth Godin, we explore the deeper motivations behind our work and how to find sustainable fuel for creativity in an age of constant change. Seth shares a pivotal revelatio…

1
Carnegie's Tong Zhao on the Expansion of China's Nuclear Arsenal 1:10:21

1M ago1:10:21

1:10:21

This week on Sinica, in a show taped in early June in Washington, Kaiser chats with Tong Zhao (赵通) of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a leading expert on Chinese nuclear doctrine, about why the PRC has, in recent years, significantly increased the size of its nuclear arsenal. Zhao offers a master class in the practice of strategic e…

1
Andy Richter : Finding Joy Beyond the Spotlight 1:18:47

1M ago1:18:47

1:18:47

What happens when success doesn't deliver the happiness you expected? Comedy legend Andy Richter takes us on a thoughtful stroll through Los Angeles, unpacking this question with surprising candor and characteristic wit. Beyond his famous role as Conan O'Brien's sidekick, Andy reveals himself as a deeply reflective artist who's discovered that crea…

1
The Strange Afterlife of an American Football Story from China 45:20

1M ago45:20

45:20

In 2014, the writer Christopher Beam published a humorous, heartwarming story in The New Republic about an unlikely team of American football enthusiasts in Chongqing who went on to defeat their archrivals in Shanghai to win a championship. The piece was optioned by Sony Pictures, and had some big names attached, but was ultimately never made — not…

1
The Raider: China and the Life of Evans Carlson, with Historian Stephen Platt 1:22:06

2M ago1:22:06

1:22:06

This week on Sinica, I chat with Stephen Platt, historian at UMass Amherst and author, most recently, of the book The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II. Like his previous works, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom and Imperial Twilight, it offers a compelling narrative history of an overlo…

1
Industrial Policy, "Overcapacity," and U.S.-China Trade: A Conversation with Cambridge's Jostein Hauge 1:08:02

2M ago1:08:02

1:08:02

This week on Sinica, I chat with Jostein Hauge, political economist and an Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, based at the Centre of Development Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies, and author of the book The Future of the Factory: How Megatrends are Changing Industrialization. 3:…

1
Seeking the Next DeepSeek: the Chinese Generative AI Algorithm Registry, with Kendra Schaefer 1:03:57

2M ago1:03:57

1:03:57

This week on Sinica, I speak with Kendra Schaefer, the partner at Trivium China who heads their tech practice. She recently published a fascinating paper looking at the Cyberspace Administration of China's comprehensive database of generative AI tools released in China, and she shares the insights and big takeaways from her research on that databas…

1
Bonus Ep: Rubio's Visa Revocations, with Jeremy Goldkorn [Explicit] 49:42

2M ago49:42

49:42

Jeremy Goldkorn joins for this largely unedited throwback to the early, sweary days of the show. We talk about the announcement made on Wednesday, 28 May 2025, on the "aggressive" revocation of Chinese student visas for students with Party "connections" or who study "critical fields." You've been warned! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/priv…

1
Ukraine, China, and the Emerging Geopolitics of Resource Security 1:28:57

2M ago1:28:57

1:28:57

A bonus episode this week. On May 22, I moderated a panel organized by Vita Golod and the UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies. The focus was on the U.S.-Ukraine Mineral Security Partnership, and it features Ivan Us, Chief Consultant at the Center for Foreign Policy at the National Institute for Strategic Studies; Jim Mullinax…

1
House of Huawei: Eva Dou of the Washington Post on Her New "Secret History" of Huawei 1:08:40

2M ago1:08:40

1:08:40

This week on Sinica, I chat with Eva Dou, technology reporter for the Washington Post, about her terrific new book about Huawei. From its prehistory to its fight for its life under tremendous U.S. pressure, she tells its story in a way that's both deeply engaging and very evenhanded. 04:53 – Meng Wanzhou’s case and its impact on media interest in H…

1
NEW! China Talking Points Ep. 1: Trade Truce, J-10C Dogfight, and What Comes Next 1:04:49

3M ago1:04:49

1:04:49

The Sinica Network proudly presents a new podcast: China Talking Points, featuring Kaiser Kuo (host of the Sinica Podcast), Eric Olander (host of the China-Global South Podcast and China In Africa Podcast) and Andrew Polk, co-founder of Trivium China and host of its podcast. We'll be joined regularly by Lizzi Lee, Fellow on Chinese Economy at the A…

1
China's DeepSeek Moment — a talk given April 17 2025 at Carnegie Mellon 30:45

3M ago30:45

30:45

I had scheduled a show to record while I was in Providence last week, but it fell through and had to be rescheduled, so please give this talk I delivered at Carnegie Mellon last month a listen! Hope you enjoy. Kaiser See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.…

1
Broken Engagement: Veteran China reporter Bob Davis on his new collection of interviews 1:15:47

3M ago1:15:47

1:15:47

This week on Sinica, I chat with veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Bob Davis, who has covered the U.S.-China relationship for decades. He recently published a new book called Broken Engagement, which consists of interviews with U.S. policymakers who were instrumental in shaping American policy toward China from the George H.W. Bush administratio…

1
The EU-China Relationship in the Age of Trumpian Disruption, with Finbarr Bermingham of the SCMP 1:06:46

3M ago1:06:46

1:06:46

This week on Sinica, I chat with SCMP Senior Europe Correspondent Finbarr Bermingham, who joins from Brussels where he's been covering the EU-China relationship in fantastic depth and with great insight. 3:17 – EU-China relations in early 2025: the effect of the 2021 sanctions, who advocated for engagement versus confrontation with China, and the i…

1
Live at Pitt: CMU's Benno Weiner on the Evolution of China's Minzu Policy 52:07

3M ago52:07

52:07

This week on Sinica, in a show recorded at the University of Pittsburgh, I speak with Benno Weiner, Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, about how China's policy toward its minority nationalities (or minzu) have shifted from their older, Soviet-inspired form to the policies of assimilation we now see. 2:29 – How the so-call…

1
Sinica Live at Columbia University, with Yawei Liu and Yukon Huang 58:15

4M ago58:15

58:15

This week on the Sinica Podcast, I chat with Yawei Liu, Senior Advisor for China at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and Yukon Huang, former China country head of the World Bank and now Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The show was taped live at the 2025 Columbia China Summit at Columbia University, put on by t…

1
Life, Love, and Loss in China: Hazza Harding's story of resilience 1:19:20

4M ago1:19:20

1:19:20

This week on Sinica, I chat with Hazza Harding, a young Australian who began learning Chinese and made his way to China where he became a pop singer with hits on Chinese pop charts and a state media newscaster — and also lost his husband tragically, suffered through the COVID lockdowns while grieving for his loss. Yet he remains committed to furthe…

1
Is China Gaining Ground in Technology Diffusion? A Conversation with Jeffrey Ding 45:52

4M ago45:52

45:52

This week on Sinica, I chat with Jeffrey Ding, author of Technology and the Rise of Great Powers, a book that argues that a nation's ability to invent foundational technologies matters ultimately less in its overall national power than its ability to diffuse those "general purpose technologies," like electricity, digital technology, the internet, a…

1
Evolutionary Psychology and International Relations, with Jeremy Garlick 1:26:24

4M ago1:26:24

1:26:24

This week on the Sinica Podcast, I chat with Jeremy Garlick, Director of the Jan Masaryk Centre for International Studies, Prague University, and a scholar of China’s international relations. Jeremy is the author of the book Advantage China: Agent of Change in an Era of Global Disruption, but the book we're talking about this week is his new Cambri…

1
Live in Berkeley: Jessica Chen Weiss and Ryan Hass on the U.S. and China in 2025 1:02:08

5M ago1:02:08

1:02:08

This week, a special episode taped live at the University of California, Berkeley — my alma mater — on March 6 and featuring Jessica Chen Weiss of Johns Hopkins SAIS and Ryan Hass of the Brookings Institution, both well-known to people who follow U.S.-China relations. This episode was made possible by the Center for Chinese Studies at UC Berkeley's…

1
Introducing the Trivium Podcast, now on the Sinica Network 1:18:29

5M ago1:18:29

1:18:29

This week, I'm proud to announce a new collaboration with Trivium, a China-focused strategic advisory firm you've probably heard of. They've got offices in DC, London, Shanghai, and Beijing, and they focus on analyzing and forecasting Chinese policy developments for multinational companies and institutional investors across a range of verticals -- …

1
Studying China in the Absence of Access: Rediscovering a Lost Art — Part 2, with Alice Miller and Joseph Fewsmith 1:23:23

5M ago1:23:23

1:23:23

This week: Part 2 in a series of podcasts in conjunction with the China Research Center at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). The series, titled "Studying China in the Absence of Access: Rediscovering a Lost Art," ran from September to November 2021, and featured four eminent "Pekingologists," or specialists in Chine…

1
China’s Strategy in Global Power Transitions: Challenges in a Turbulent World — A panel discussion 1:10:01

5M ago1:10:01

1:10:01

This week on Sinica: February 24 marks the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and as I’ve done for the last two years, I moderated a panel organized by Vita Golod, a Ukrainian China scholar who happens to be here in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at UNC as a visiting scholar. She’s worked tirelessly to promote awareness of …

1
The War for Chinese Talent in America, with David Zweig 1:14:00

5M ago1:14:00

1:14:00

This week on Sinica, I chat with David Zweig, a veteran China scholar who is Professor Emeritus from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. We discuss Davis'd latest book, The War for Chinese Talent in America, which looks at Chinese efforts to harness the intellectual firepower of Chinese scientists and engineers who studied abroad, e…

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