North Korea is a mystery to nearly everyone — even those who have dedicated their lives to studying the country — including Korean experts based in Seoul, national security experts in Washington or Beijing, and a variety of foreigners who have spent extended periods studying in or reporting from the North. There is great uncertainty about what the country’s leaders really think of China, how self-sufficient the North’s economy actually is, and even the background of the “respected” leader, Kim Jong-un, beyond a few seemingly random details (he studied in Switzerland and likes basketball and Whitney Houston, for example).
Evan Osnos — former Beijing correspondent for the New Yorker and now the magazine’s correspondent in the currently far more unpredictable capital of the U.S. — recently travelled to the Hermit Kingdom and reported an extensive cover piece for that magazine: “The risk of nuclear war with North Korea.”
What are the prospects for war and peace in northeast Asia? Evan talked with Jeremy and Kaiser about his conversations with North Korean, Chinese, and U.S. government officials and people involved in the complicated regional powerplay.
Recommendations:
Jeremy: Jeeves & Wooster, a comedy TV series adapted from the P.G. Wodehouse books about a gormless English aristocrat and his very bright butler, played by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, respectively. It’s “really a wonderful escapist pleasure [for] when you don’t feel like thinking about Donald Trump and North Korea,” Jeremy adds.
Evan: The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, a book by Blaine Harden that explains how North Koreans think about the Korean war — an essential piece of the current conundrum we all face.
Kaiser: China in Disintegration, by James Sheridan, a narrative history of the Republican Era (1912-1949) in China. Events during the period such as the Republican Revolution and the May Fourth Movement are key to understanding modern China.
Retrofitting Leninism and Re-examining Hawkishness in China with Dimitar Gueorguiev
Criticism and Conscience: A Conversation with David Moser
The Case Against the China Consensus, with Jessica Chen Weiss of SAIS
Space Debris: How Can the U.S. and China Avoid the Tragedy of the Commons, with Nainika Sudheendra
Priority Pluralism: Rethinking Universal Values in U.S.-China Relations
The Chinese Game Industry’s Journey to the West — Rui Ma and Rob Wynne on the Success of Black Myth: Wukong
The Tragedy of Old School Beijing Hip-Hop with Olivia Fu
Does Beijing Really Want Trump?
The Swifts of Beijing, with Terry Townshend of Birding Beijing
Bonus: A Free-Range Father in a Tiger Mom World — Reflections on Chinese and American Education
China's Response to U.S. Semiconductor Export Controls, with Paul Triolo and Kevin Xu
Eric Olander on China in the Global South
A Letter from Beijing
Anthony Tao: The Poetry and Soul of Beijing
Sinica Unscripted: Wang Zichen of CCG with a Third Plenum Preview and more
Improbable Diplomats: Historian Pete Millwood on how Scientific and Cultural Exchange Remade U.S.-China Relations
Adam Tooze on the U.S., China, the Energy Transition — and Saying the Unsayable
An Ecological History of Modern China, with Stevan Harrell — Part 2
An Ecological History of Modern China, with Stevan Harrell — Part 1
Peter Hessler on his new book, "Other Rivers: A Chinese Education"
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