Criticism and Conscience: A Conversation with David Moser
10/04/24 • 80 min
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This week on the Sinica Podcast, I chat with my dear friend David Moser, a longtime resident of Beijing, formerly an occasional co-host of Sinica and associate professor at Beijing Capital Normal University. We have a long history of exploring the underlying issues in our approach to China, and this week, we unpack some of those, focusing on the role of outsiders in Chinese society and their role in "changing China," drawing on David's response to an essay I recently published.
3:46 —David’s thoughts on Kaiser’s essay (“Priority Pluralism: Rethinking Universal Values in U.S.-China Relations”)
5:18 —How David thinks about going on state media and the reasons he does so
10:37 —How David’s engagement with state media has changed over time
15:04 —Conscience, moral intuition, drawing lines, and whataboutism
26:35 —The outsider urge to change China: the differences between the U.S. and Chinese governments and COVID as a test of the two systems; the role of American policy in working toward positive change and the importance of continuing engagement; and so-called Enlightenment values and priority pluralism
50:46 —The debate over cultural differences
57:09 —China’s notion of whole-process democracy versus American democracy
1:05:55 — “Give them time:” Anticipating when we will see big changes in China’s political culture
Recommendations:
David: Richard Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought; and his own article, “A Fearful Asymmetry: COVID-19 and America’s Information Deficit with China”
Kaiser: The “Open Database for China Studies Resource Guide” published by ACLS
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This week on the Sinica Podcast, I chat with my dear friend David Moser, a longtime resident of Beijing, formerly an occasional co-host of Sinica and associate professor at Beijing Capital Normal University. We have a long history of exploring the underlying issues in our approach to China, and this week, we unpack some of those, focusing on the role of outsiders in Chinese society and their role in "changing China," drawing on David's response to an essay I recently published.
3:46 —David’s thoughts on Kaiser’s essay (“Priority Pluralism: Rethinking Universal Values in U.S.-China Relations”)
5:18 —How David thinks about going on state media and the reasons he does so
10:37 —How David’s engagement with state media has changed over time
15:04 —Conscience, moral intuition, drawing lines, and whataboutism
26:35 —The outsider urge to change China: the differences between the U.S. and Chinese governments and COVID as a test of the two systems; the role of American policy in working toward positive change and the importance of continuing engagement; and so-called Enlightenment values and priority pluralism
50:46 —The debate over cultural differences
57:09 —China’s notion of whole-process democracy versus American democracy
1:05:55 — “Give them time:” Anticipating when we will see big changes in China’s political culture
Recommendations:
David: Richard Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought; and his own article, “A Fearful Asymmetry: COVID-19 and America’s Information Deficit with China”
Kaiser: The “Open Database for China Studies Resource Guide” published by ACLS
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Previous Episode
The Case Against the China Consensus, with Jessica Chen Weiss of SAIS
This week on Sinica, I chat with Jessica Chen Weiss, until recently at Cornell University but now the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, SAIS, in Washington D.C. Jessica, to those of you familiar with her work, has been at the forefront of the fight for a less strident, diplomacy-first approach to China, balancing threats with assurances to find a modus vivendi with China. She has challenged prevailing notions about China's intentions, and has called for the U.S. to advance an affirmative vision of how it wants to live in the world with China. We focus in this conversation about a recent piece in Foreign Affairs in which she challenges both the solidity and the logic of the "bipartisan consensus" on China, and holds out hope that a next administration might approach the relationship differently.
3:45 – How Jessica has settled into D.C.; her professorial namesake; and how she has become a leading voice for a less confrontational approach to China
9:30 – Where Jessica sees diverging views on China in the Republican and Democratic Parties
12:41 – What a more durable basis for coexistence should look like
14:46 – Credible deterrence and strategic ambiguity in the context of Taiwan
16:03 – Acknowledgements to limits on American power and the importance of being realistic
18:09 – Assurances on Taiwan and what threatens their credibility
21:13 – The question of engagement and the deterrent effect of economic integration
25:30 – How the U.S. can combat legitimate national security threats from China without undermining its own values, and the importance of not treating the Chinese in diaspora as a fifth column
31:31 – Electoral politics: the importance of welcoming and inclusive policies and creating space for debate and discernment
35:07 – The importance of testing our assumptions
38:30 – What another Trump presidency might look like
40:30 – How a Harris administration might differ from the Biden administration
44:13 – The U.S. and China-Russia relations
Recommendations:
Jessica: Valarie Kaur’s Sage Warrior: Wake to Oneness, Practice Pleasure, Choose Courage, Become Victory
Kaiser: BeaGo, an AI-powered search tool (download from your app store!)
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Next Episode
Retrofitting Leninism and Re-examining Hawkishness in China with Dimitar Gueorguiev
This week, a show taped live at Syracuse University on September 30 with Associate Professor Dimitar Gueorguiev, author of the excellent Retrofitting Leninism: Participation Without Democracy in China. We discuss his book, his recent paper exploring hawkishness in Chinese public opinion, and his thoughts about the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
1:59 Syracuse University’s MAX 132 class ("the globalization class")
4:10 Dimitar’s background and how he became interested in China
7:44 How the genre of authoritarian resilience took off
14:26 China’s understanding of democracy (whole-process democracy)
17:40 Features of Leninism that have allowed the Chinese Communist Party to survive
21:21 Why China in the 1980s and '90s admired Singaporea's authoritarian PAP
23:37 The idea of the mass line
27:16 China’s sentiment analysis through technology, and using bottom-up information as performance evaluation
34:03 The COVID-19 pandemic and the confirmation bias of the regime-type explanation
37:37 The National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)
40:14 Dimitar’s research on hawkishness in China: how he got the data, what drives Chinese hawkishness, and the national security vs. economic lens
51:08 Why those who are dissatisfied with the government lean more hawkish and those who are satisfied with the government lean more dovish
56:30 The upcoming U.S. election: how things may play out under the two different administrations, and understanding Chinese preferences
Recommendations:
Dimitar: The TV series The Expanse (2015-2022)
Kaiser: Anthea Roberts’ Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters; and the documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos (2024)
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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