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.
An update on the Xinjiang crisis with Nury Turkel
Samm Sacks on the U.S.-China tech relationship
China, the U.S., and Kenya
Is there really an epidemic of self-censorship among China scholars
Everything you ever wanted to know about Taiwan but were afraid to ask, Part 2
Everything you ever wanted to know about Taiwan but were afraid to ask, Part 1
Sinica Live with Zha Jianying: Dealing with the troublemakers
Introducing the Middle Earth podcast
China’s ethnic policy in Xinjiang and Tibet: The move toward assimilation
Live from the US-China Business Council: The bilateral trade relationship in 2019
Mexican and Canadian diplomats in a changing, challenging China
The U.S. and China: Cold war, or hot air?
Gene-edited babies, CRISPR, and China’s changing ethical landscape
Huawei and the tech cold war
Meng Wanzhou’s arrest: The legal dimension
40 years of reform and opening up, with Jude Blanchette
Blaming China
The Nature Conservancy in China
‘Shaken Authority’: Party-speak, propaganda, and the Sichuan earthquake of 2008
Mythbusting China’s social credit system
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