Sinica Podcast - Grifter, chaos agent, or CCP spy? The New Yorker's Evan Osnos on Guo Wengui

Grifter, chaos agent, or CCP spy? The New Yorker's Evan Osnos on Guo Wengui

10/27/22 • 58 min

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This week on Sinica, Evan Osnos, staff writer for The New Yorker, joins hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn to talk about his new piece on one of the most puzzling figures to come out of China: Guo Wengui, a.k.a. Miles Kwok, who took what he learned about dealing with power and money in China and applied those lessons to the U.S., insinuating himself with leading figures of the American right. Who is this mysterious man, and what is he really after? In an unscripted episode that will bring some listeners back to the grotty apartment in Beijing where Sinica recorded in its very early days, Evan, Kaiser, and Jeremy parse the mysteries of the strange phenomenon of Guo Wengui.

03:37 – Who is Guo Wengui?

10:07 – Orville Schell’s experience with Guo Wengui

14:48 – Steve Bannon’s comparison between Guo and Trump

17:40 – The process of fact-checking this piece

23:03 – Guo’s potential ties to the pro-Xi Jinping clique

26:02 – VOA’s interview with Guo

30:06 – Guo’s campaign against Teng Biao and other Chinese dissidents

33:57 – Guo’s role as an interlocutor on behalf of the MSS

39:00 – Steve Wynn’s efforts to extradite Guo

42:10 – Guo’s impact on the Chinese diaspora community

45:11 – Guo’s influence on US-China relations

A transcript of this interview is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Jeremy: "President Trump's First Term," by Evan Osnos, a New Yorker article written in 2016 predicting what would happen to the U.S. if Donald Trump won in 2016. (Spoiler: he did. And Evan was right).

Evan: An audio tribute to legendary New Yorker editor John Bennet: https://www.cjr.org/special_report/johnbennet.php

Kaiser: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet, a forgivably melodramatic historical fiction novel with an emphasis on architecture

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

03:37 – Who is Guo Wengui?

10:07 – Orville Schell’s experience with Guo Wengui

14:48 – Steve Bannon’s comparison between Guo and Trump

17:40 – The process of fact-checking this piece

23:03 – Guo’s potential ties to the pro-Xi Jinping clique

26:02 – VOA’s interview with Guo

30:06 – Guo’s campaign against Teng Biao and other Chinese dissidents

33:57 – Guo’s role as an interlocutor on behalf of the MSS

39:00 – Steve Wynn’s efforts to extradite Guo

42:10 – Guo’s impact on the Chinese diaspora community

45:11 – Guo’s influence on US-China relations

A transcript of this interview is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Evan: An audio tribute to legendary New Yorker editor John Bennet: https://www.cjr.org/special_report/johnbennet.php

Kaiser: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet, a forgivably melodramatic historical fiction novel with an emphasis on architecture

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Previous Episode

Overreach and overreaction, with Susan Shirk

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Susan Shirk, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Pacific and Research Professor and Chair of the 21st Century China Center at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UCSD, about how the deliberately collective leadership of the Hu Jintao years set the stage for the over-concentration of power under Xi Jinping and created conditions for overreach. She argues that Chinese overreach was met with American overreaction — not just in the Trump years, but continuing into the Biden administration.

11:35 – The thesis of Overreach and misconceptions based on the title

15:50 – The decline of collective leadership

19:57 – Selection process of politburo members

27:48 – The advantages of China’s former collective leadership system

31:40 – How collective leadership often lead to overreach

39:40 – How personalistic, overly centralized rule can also result in overreach

43:02 – Increased paranoia, insecurity, and “permanent purge” culture under Xi

49:59 – American overreaction to China’s ambitions

A transcript of this episode is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Susan – Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World by Howard French

Kaiser – His hobby of Asian archery and finding a community/activity you’re passionate about outside your professional line of work

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Next Episode

The 20th Party Congress postgame show with Damien Ma and Lizzi Lee

This week on Sinica, our friends at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs invited us for a live show taping before a small group. Kaiser is joined by Lizzi Lee, MIT-trained economist-turned-reporter who hosts the Chinese-language show "Wall Street Today" as well as The China Project's "Live with Lizzi Lee," both on Youtube; and by Damien Ma, who heads the Paulson Institute's in-house think tank MacroPolo. These two top-shelf analysts of Chinese politics break down what was important — and what was just a sideshow — at the 20th Party Congress, and offer their knowledgeable perspectives on the individuals named to key posts and what this likely means for China's direction. Don't miss this one!

2:40 – Findings from MacroPolo’s “fantasy PBSC” experiment

8:18 – Did China watchers overemphasize Xi Jinping’s political constraints?

12:31 – Support for Li Qiang across different political factions

17:23 – The changing factional composition of Chinese elite politics

20:20 – Return of the technocrats

23:27 – “Generation-skipping” in China’s recent political promotions

28:26 – The selection of Cai Qi

32:46 – Li Shulei as a successor to Wang Huning

37:07 – The future of China’s economic leadership

39:52 – Selection of the vice premiers

41:18 – The future of China’s diplomatic core

45:28 – The Hu Jintao episode