China and the techno-authoritarian narrative
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.7 • 710 Ratings
🗓️ 22 November 2019
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a podcast taped live for the Asia Society of Switzerland in Zurich, Kaiser is joined by Kristin Shi-Kupfer, director of the Research Area on Public Policy and Society at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin, and Evgeny Morozov, contributing editor at the New Republic and author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom and To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. They discuss the shifting narratives about the relationship between technology and authoritarian politics, and how these shifts have been affected by China’s rise as a technology power.
6:48: What we got wrong about China’s censorship regime
15:28: Was the internet ever meant to set us free?
25:20: Two competing visions for the internet
39:55: The role of the private sector versus the state
51:42: What role does the internet play in society?
Recommendations:
Kristin: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.
Evgeny: An essay in the most recent version of the New Left Review, Automation and the future of work—1, by Aaron Benanav.
Kaiser: The audiobook version of A Hero Born: The Definitive Edition (The Legend of the Condor Heroes, volume 1), authored by Jin Yong and translated by Anna Holmwood.
This podcast was edited and produced by Kaiser Kuo and Jason MacRonald.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this special live taping of the Cynica podcast coming to today from the Asia Society, Switzerland in Zurich. Hello, Zurich. |
| 0:25.8 | It is just so wonderful to be back here. |
| 0:27.9 | I was here last year, and I had a terrific time. |
| 0:31.2 | The Cynica podcast is produced in partnership with SubChina. |
| 0:36.0 | SubChina is simply the best way there is to keep on top of all the important news coming out of China, |
| 0:38.4 | signing up for Sub-China access. |
| 0:43.2 | And you get our daily newsletter featuring stories on everything from the Belt and Road to local entrepreneurship and innovation in China, from the travails of ethnically Chinese |
| 0:48.1 | researchers in the United States in this age of creeping McCarthyism to China's |
| 0:53.9 | ongoing extralegal internment of hundreds of |
| 0:56.7 | thousands or by some estimates over a million Uyghurs and other Muslims in China's Xinjiang region. |
| 1:02.9 | We're sure you'll agree it is a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation |
| 1:07.7 | that is reshaping the world. |
| 1:10.2 | I'm Kaiser Guo, and the very good people here at the Asia Society, Switzerland, |
| 1:14.1 | have invited me back here to convene another conversation about a topic |
| 1:17.3 | that's really at the center of so much of the discourse about China today. |
| 1:23.8 | Technology. |
| 1:24.9 | Tech is an important component of nearly every story that we read about from China today. |
| 1:30.2 | In a national security, we routinely read now about how advanced Chinese weapon systems or |
| 1:35.0 | cyber warfare or cyber espionage capabilities or the dangers or challenges posed by China's strong |
| 1:40.6 | position in 5G technology threaten American national security. In trade, we read |
| 1:46.4 | about China's industrial policy and its plans to dominate advanced manufacturing through investment |
| 1:51.9 | in key technologies. In the issue of human rights, we hear a great deal about Chinese |
... |
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