The South China Morning Post has been up to big things recently — and faced big doubts from those who worry about its editorial independence as Hong Kong’s paper of record.
In late 2015, it was announced that the paper would be acquired by Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, bringing the paper both a huge infusion of cash and a wave of questions about whether the new owners would maintain the SCMP’s editorial independence from Beijing.
Gary Liu, formerly CEO at content aggregator Digg and head of labs at streaming music service Spotify, was appointed CEO of the SCMP a year after the Alibaba acquisition. He aims to adapt the 114-year-old newspaper for an age of technology disruptions, and talked to Jeremy and Kaiser about the paper’s editorial independence, its plans to evolve and build out digitally, and how it plans to contribute to the global conversation on China’s rise. This podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at the China Institute in New York on October 9.
Recommendations:
Jeremy: The WeChat app of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), a good way to get real news about China because spitting out propaganda is not a priority of the NDRC. Just search “国家发改委” (guójiā fāgǎiwěi) on WeChat.
Gary: The Party, a book by Richard McGregor that gives a fascinating exploration of how the Communist Party of China wants the world to perceive it, how it plans to stay in power, and how it manages to affect everyone’s life in China. Also, Destined for War, by Harvard professor Graham Allison, which discusses the Thucydides Trap, China’s rise, and the history of great power rivalries.
Kaiser: A research paper from the Mercator Institute for China Studies titled “Ideas and ideologies competing for China’s political future,” which identifies really interesting clusters of people in China who have diverse ideological alignments. A Sinica podcast on a similar subject can be found here.
Chris Buckley: The China journalist’s China journalist
Big Daddy Dough: Hip-hop and macroeconomics in China
Jane Perlez: Chinese foreign relations in a new age of uncertainty
Rhino horn and organized crime, from Africa to China and Vietnam
Africa-China journalism
Susan Shirk: The fragile superpower and trepidation over Trump
John Zhu retells the Three Kingdoms story
Sidney Rittenberg on solitary confinement and more
Sidney Rittenberg: An interview with a revolutionary
Ken Liu on Chinese science fiction
Talking ’bout my generation: Alec Ash and Chinese millennials
Ian Johnson on the Vatican and China
The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: Part Two
The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: a conversation with John Pomfret on his new book
Beijing Meets Banjo: Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn
Edward Wong on foreign correspondence and dealing with censorship in China
Books, podcasts and the history of science in China with Carla Nappi
The delights of cooking Chinese food: A conversation with chef and author Fuchsia Dunlop
How has China changed in the past four decades? A conversation with John Holden
How will Donald Trump’s victory impact China and U.S.-China relations?
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