Shortly after Deborah Seligsohn was last on Sinica, in April, the lab leak hypothesis seemed suddenly to gain traction — at least in American media. This week, Kaiser invites Deborah back to the show to talk about why the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a notion long regarded by virologists as less probable than zoonotic transmission, has burst back into the conversation. Deborah served as the State Department’s Environment, Science, Technology and Health Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 2003 to 2007. She is an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University in Philadelphia.
3:00: The persistence of the lab leak theory
11:40: Navigating the political and institutional landscape within China
25:36: A view from Beijing’s perspective
31:02: Eliciting cooperation from Beijing, and what should our priorities be
Recommendations:
Deborah: The podcast This Week in Virology, particularly episodes 760 and 762, which touch on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kaiser: Richard L. Watkins, a candidate running for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina.
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"
Taiwan, Ukraine, and the Sino-American Rivalry
Jonathan Chatwin on Deng Xiaoping's 1992 Southern Tour
Ed Lanfranco: from Hoarder to Historian
Jay Kuo on Beijing's Gay 90s
The Struggle for Taiwan: Sulmaan Wasif Khan of Tufts University on his new book
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jane Perlez on her new podcast series, Face-Off
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