Iran and the vaccination scandal

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Currentaffairs, Business, News, China Politics, Shenzhen, Chinese, Chongqing, China News, Politics, China, Culture, Sichuan, Hangzhou, Beijing, International Relations, China Economy, Chengdu, Film, Shanghai, Guangzhou

4.7 • 710 Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2010

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

While Western countries prepare for tougher sanctions at the UN against Iran regarding its nuclear development, China is reluctant to impose any further sanctions, intensifying the tension between Beijing and Washington. However, increasing signs, including Hu Jintao’s upcoming visit to Washington to attend the nuclear summit, have shown that China may be preparing for an about-turn on Iranian sanctions. Indeed, China is in a tough spot in this situation as Iran has always been its important strategic partner and oil provider. Through delicate maneuvering in the Middle East, China is undoubtedly maximizing concessions from both Iran and the West. Scandal broke out last month involving a number of deaths in Shanxi and Jiangsu among infants and toddlers that appear to be related to bad vaccinations. The crisis was eventually attributed to the private companies that take over the vaccines through local health administrations. How the government will manage this situation, coming after the melamine crisis, is still waiting to be seen. In this week’s installment, host Kaiser Kuo discusses these two issues with Bill Bishop, a tech entrepreneur and blogger at DigiCha.com and Sinocism.com, and William Moss, who writes the blog imagethief.com. How should we interpret China’s signs of willingness to support sanctions on Iran over nuclear weapons development? Will the vaccination scandal become another melamine crisis, or does evidence point to this blowing over quickly? References: The Iran Nuclear Issue: The View from Beijing, by Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt The Race for Iran blog The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, by Robert Baer 山西疫苗乱象调查：近百名儿童注射后或死或残, by王克勤 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:45.7	That's audible.com slash Wondery UK.
0:48.9	Music Welcome to the Cynica podcast, a weekly discussion about current affairs in China.
1:03.0	We're coming to you from the pop-up Chinese studios here in Beijing.
1:07.0	I'm your host, Kaiser Guo. Jeremy Goldcorn is on holiday in South Africa this week, and he'll be checking in with us with an audio postcard from Africa.
1:15.2	Joining me again this week is Bill Bishop, a tech entrepreneur, prolific blogger, and my favorite guy to follow on Twitter for all things Chinese. How are you, Bill?
1:22.5	Great, thanks, Kaiser. I'm also really pleased to welcome Will Moss, who writes blog ImageThief.com, one of my big favorites.
1:29.7	Will is currently on sabbatical from his regular gig at a big PR firm, where he's a director in their corporate practice, and he's working on his Mandarin right now.
1:37.2	Say hi, Will.
1:38.1	Hi, great to be here.
1:39.9	Hey, so today we're going to be focusing on a couple of things.
1:42.0	First off, are we witnessing a thaw in relations between Beijing and Washington over China's apparent willingness to support sanctions on Iran over nuclear weapons development?
1:52.4	We're also going to talk about China's views on Iran, the complexities of Beijing's relationship with Iran.
	...

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