Podcast
A fortnightly podcast hosted by Cindy Yu on Chinese politics, society, and more
A fortnightly podcast hosted by Cindy Yu on Chinese politics, society, and more
Chinese Whispers
It’s not easy to talk about the Cultural Revolution inside China – let alone teach it. In recent years, one of the last professors to have taught the period has been hounded out of her role at a top university. Sun Peidong has now taken a post at Cornell, after Chinese journals stopped publishing her
Play 37 mins
Chinese Whispers
Last week, the US and Canada each sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan has appealed to the US for faster delivery of fighter aircraft. It’s been a tense month in the Strait, kicked off by China’s celebration of its national day on October 1 through flying a record number of aircraft through
Play 31 mins
Chinese Whispers
Throughout Chinese history, as seen by poems and novels, drinking has been seen as a source for literary inspiration; or a form of manly competition; or, as ever, a status symbol. After a century of political turmoil in which the way people lived was radically disrupted, drinking culture is now coming back with China’s growing
Play 32 mins
Chinese Whispers
For China, WWII started in 1937 with the Japanese invasion, two years before Hitler invaded Poland. Japan would occupy China until its surrender in 1945, in the process committing atrocities like the rape of Nanjing. This was the second Japanese invasion in fifty years. Yet decades after the war, when I grew up in Nanjing,
Play 39 mins
Chinese Whispers
Are the Chinese religious? The government’s treatment of Christians and particularly Muslims have been under scrutiny in recent years. But these religious groups only form around 4 per cent of the Chinese population, according to national surveys. So what do the other 96 per cent believe in? The CCP is famously atheist, but that doesn’t
Play 38 mins
Chinese Whispers
Last month, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi welcomed senior Taliban leaders to Beijing, standing shoulder to shoulder for the photographers. China is carefully watching events unfold in Afghanistan. And while it hasn’t yet recognised the Taliban government, the Beijing meeting was a nod towards a potential alliance. But replacing America in Afghanistan wouldn’t be
Play 36 mins
Chinese Whispers
It might be an understatement to say that China has a difficult relationship with drugs. Most infamously, the opium wars of the 1800s saw British soldiers fight against the Qing dynasty to protect the British right to sell opium to China. When the Qing lost, it wasn’t just the sobriety of their people that they
Play 23 mins
Chinese Whispers
For most people, Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping stand out as the two Communist leaders of the People’s Republic of China. But growing up, it was actually a third man, by the name of Deng Xiaoping, whose legacy I felt the most. Though less than 5 foot tall, his impact on China’s trajectory was arguably
Play 41 mins
Chinese Whispers
Tangping, or ‘lying flat’, is a new lifestyle tempting China’s millennials. Describing a minimalist stress-free life where one opts out of a career and raising family, lying flat is the young person’s desperate answer to the infinite rat race of modern Chinese workplaces and society. But while there are few lie-flatters as of yet, the
Play 29 mins
Chinese Whispers
In the 12 months since the enactment of the National Security Law on Hong Kong, opposition leaders, journalists and activists have been arrested; reforms on education and elections begun; and last week saw the emotional closure of the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily. On this episode, I speak to Jennifer Creery, who works for the Financial
Play 35 mins
Chinese Whispers
Exactly 20 years ago, China acceded to the World Trade Organisation. In the decades since, the globalised world became what we know today, with hundreds of millions of Chinese and people around the world lifted out of poverty through free trade. But the promised liberalisation – both economic and political – doesn’t seem to have
Play 39 mins
Chinese Whispers
What is it like to be a journalist in China? There are obvious restrictions on freedom of speech, but, as I find out on this episode, there are creative ways to navigate the strict system of censorship. The end result is a complex media landscape – some have to litter investigations with state propaganda; others
Play 38 mins
Chinese Whispers
China has run wild with facial recognition. From using it to ration tissues in public toilets, to identifying highest paying customers in stores and criminals from a crowd, what is a budding technology in the West has furthered state surveillance and corporate snooping in China. But there is a civil fightback happening in the courts,
Play 40 mins
Chinese Whispers
The archaic-sounding notion of ‘filial piety’ has little direct translation into English, but is a deep-rooted part of Chinese culture and ethics. On this episode, I find out about what motivates the subscription to such an unequal view of family life; how modernity changes expectations (and in particular, the impact of the one child policy);
Play 30 mins
Chinese Whispers
You might think that in a country as tightly controlled as China, diversity of opinion is hard to come by in written form. But as I find out in this episode, there is a vibrant conversation going on with vastly different views, especially in the intellectual elite amongst professors and journalists. So what do these
Play 35 mins
Chinese Whispers
Cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan seem to be hotting up, with headlines frequently touting the possibility of a military takeover by Beijing. But why does China care so much about this set of islands that is around a seventh of the size of the UK? Cindy Yu speaks to historian Rana Mitter and analyst
Play 41 mins
Chinese Whispers
‘Scratch a communist, you’ll find a nationalist underneath’, Professor Kerry Brown, the director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, tells me on this episode. Together with Professor Victor Shih of UC San Diego, we talk about what drives the Chinese Communist Party (hint: it’s not communism), what membership means today and the policy
Play 41 mins
Chinese Whispers
Tiger mums and dads are infamous in the West, but in China the pressure is ramped up several times higher. From kindergarten to university, exams form the structure of a disciplined and competitive educational environment. It yields result – with even the poorest students in Shanghai scoring higher on maths and reading than the richest
Play 32 mins
Chinese Whispers
After getting off the phone with Xi Jinping, Joe Biden warned his senators that on infrastructure ‘and a whole range of other things’, China was spending much more than the US, and America risked being left behind. So just how interconnected is modern China and is it really a good growth model to emulate? With
Play 30 mins
Chinese Whispers
As the first BNO passport holders begin to make their way to the UK and start the path to a new citizenship, Cindy Yu takes a look back at Hong Kong’s history and how that special city-state formed its own identity. As SOAS’s Professor Steve Tsang tells her on the podcast: ‘Not quite British, not
Play 41 mins
Chinese Whispers
In November, the IPO of Jack Ma’s fintech company Ant Financial was abruptly stopped by Chinese regulators (listen to the episode of Chinese Whispers from then here). But while the move has been seen as counter-productive and political in the West, many Chinese cheered the clipping of Jack Ma’s wings. It’s in no small part
Play 34 mins
Chinese Whispers
‘Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines’, the Chinese Embassy in the US tweeted last week. The tweet, since deleted by Twitter, is particularly shocking for the reports of forced sterilisations
Play 51 mins
Chinese Whispers
2020 is drawing to a close but none of us will forget this year anytime soon. For China, has it also been a watershed year? Western rhetoric hasn’t been so hawkish on China in a very long time, with talk of a second Cold War gracing commentary pages and calls to decouple supply chains. Lost
Play 23 mins
Chinese Whispers
When thinking about Chinese student protests, you’ll inevitably think about Hong Kong or Tiananmen. But there’s one that kicked it all off in modern Chinese history, and its reverberations are still felt throughout the century, not least because of its role in the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. It’s the May Fourth Movement of
Play 29 mins
Chinese Whispers
As the UK and much of the West continues to struggle against Covid, in China, things largely seem back to normal. Pictures from the ‘Golden Week’, a week of state holidays to celebrate the People’s Republic’s founding, showed mountains and seas of people. On this longer episode than usual, I take a deep dive into
Play 60 mins
Chinese Whispers
Ant Group is the business magnate Jack Ma’s fintech subsidiary, the company behind the ubiquitous ‘Alipay’ app, which has one billion users. Last week, it was due to begin trading on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges. Set to raise US$37 billion, it would have been the biggest IPO ever. But at the eleventh
Play 32 mins
Chinese Whispers
A recent poll showed that a fifth of Chinese-Americans are thinking about voting for Trump come November. But given Trump’s hawkish position on China, what is it about him that appeals to these voters? As I find out, it’s not all about the politics – much of it comes down to shared values of social
Play 28 mins
Chinese Whispers
Chairman Mao famously said that ‘women hold up half the sky’. It was a revolutionary statement in a feudal society (though it did help him, very much, with a labour shortage). But the recent high-profile murder of a young vlogger at the hands of her ex-husband has reignited a national conversation – have Chinese women
Play 32 mins
Chinese Whispers
China is the world’s largest polluter. At the same time, it accounts for a quarter of international investment into renewable energy, and it’s the leading exporter of solar panels. So are ideas of China’s eco-unfriendliness outdated? Journalist Isabel Hilton, who received an OBE for her contribution to raising environmental awareness in China, joins the podcast.
Play 33 mins
Chinese Whispers
It’s said that Bicester Village is the second most popular attraction for Chinese tourists in the UK, coming just behind Buckingham Palace. The pandemic recovery figures show much the same – while retail is still struggling to recover, luxury goods sales is leading the bounceback. In this episode, I find out why the Chinese love
Play 24 mins