This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Margaret (Maggie) Lewis, a professor of law at Seton Hall University, about her work on the U.S. Department of Justice’s “China Initiative.” Launched under former attorney general Jeff Sessions in November 2018, the China Initiative sought to bring criminal cases against perpetrators of industrial espionage benefiting China, but as Maggie argues, it has in fact resulted in discriminatory ethnic profiling and the criminalization of what she calls “China-ness.” Listen to the end to hear Kaiser’s impression of Cookie Monster as a death metal vocalist.
8:24: Viewing China as an existential threat
17:44: Where the framing and implementation of the China Initiative falls short
28:11: Prosecuting “China-ness”
37:38: The impact on American competitiveness
Recommendations:
Maggie: What Do You Do With an Idea?, What Do You Do With a Problem?, and What Do You Do With a Chance?, by Kobi Yamada; also, Beautiful Oops!, by Barney Saltzberg.
Kaiser: The album Blackwater Park, by the Swedish progressive metal band Opeth.
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The controversy over Fang Fang’s ‘Wuhan Diary’: A conversation with the translator, Michael Berry
Why doesn't the China bubble pop? A conversation with Bloomberg’s chief economist, Tom Orlik
Censored: Molly Roberts on how China uses deterrence, distraction, and dilution to control its internet
‘Superpower Interrupted’: A conversation with veteran China journalist Michael Schuman about his Chinese history of the world
Max Fisher of the New York Times on media coverage of China, COVID-19, and Trump
Has China won? Part 2 of our conversation with Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani
Has China won? A conversation with Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani
Kaiser interviews Gordon Chang!
Grounding China's drones: Leading drone maker DJI's Brendan Schulman on U.S. regulatory challenges
The pathogen and the prejudice: Jiwei Xiao on COVID-19 in China and in America
The Sinica Podcast turns 10
China's Venezuelan vicissitudes
R.I.P. Liu Dehai, pipa virtuoso
Will China save the planet? A climatic conversation with NRDC's Barbara Finamore
Former U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul on democracy promotion in Russia and China
Dexter Roberts on ‘The Myth of Chinese Capitalism’
Janet Yang and Michael Berry on the state of cinema in a time of souring U.S.-China ties
USCBC President Craig Allen on trade in a time of disruption
UCLA's Alex Wang on where China leads and lags in climate change
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