93 episodes

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.

Chinese Whispers The Spectator

    • News
    • 4.5 • 109 Ratings

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.

    Life on the margins pt II: Li Ziqi and the phenomenon of the rural influencer

    Life on the margins pt II: Li Ziqi and the phenomenon of the rural influencer

    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.

    • 22 min
    Life on the margins: how China's rural deprivation curbs its success

    Life on the margins: how China's rural deprivation curbs its success

    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.

    • 41 min
    What the Messi row reveals about Chinese football

    What the Messi row reveals about Chinese football

    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.

    • 39 min
    Why do people join the CCP?

    Why do people join the CCP?

    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.

    • 46 min
    Was China's economic boom 'made in America'?

    Was China's economic boom 'made in America'?

    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.

    • 53 min
    What lies at the root of the India-China rivalry?

    What lies at the root of the India-China rivalry?

    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.

    • 45 min

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5
109 Ratings

109 Ratings

Jonathan Kyle, Washington DC ,

Highly Informative and Engaging

This podcast is absolutely essential listening for anyone interested in China. But even if you have never thought much about China, really any person with a curious and analytical mind seeking to better understand the world should get a lot out of it. Highlights include the episodes on Chinese cuisine, Chinese dialects, Chinese characters, ketamine use in China, and of course the numerous deep dives into current affairs, social issues and politics in China. The host, Cindy Yu finds a wide range of interesting guests to talk with. She is a skilled interviewer who is clearly deeply knowledgeable about the subject matter. I highly recommend giving it a listen!

listeningformore ,

worthwhile listen

cindy yu is a fantastic host — critical, engaging and knowledgeable. i appreciate the perspective and energy she brings to each conversation. i enjoy many of the topics as a chinese-born american who also lived in london for a few years. i always keep an eye out for new episode drops.

xi didi ,

You can’t whisper to deaf ears

Long time listener, great podcast!
The host is trying her hardest, knowing the westerners sensibility, without offending their ignorance or hurting their unfounded superiority, harnessing her Cambridge accent, to see if she can whisper some sense and good info into the audience.
To the Chinese reviewers who are upset about her “stand”, you have to understand that you are not the target audience. She is trying to make peace and build bridges.
But comparing with a couple years ago when the show started, it has not been successful and the world has gone madder.

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