Is China trying to police people in Europe?
The Europeans | European news, politics and culture
Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer
0.0 • 0 Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2022
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When reports emerged of Chinese 'police service stations' operating in Europe, alarm bells began ringing across the continent. But what exactly is going on at these sites, and how worried should we be about them? This week we ring Yuan Yang, Europe-China correspondent at the Financial Times, to get a better understanding of how China works beyond its borders. We're also talking about Viktor Orbán's controversial scarf and the right not to be 'fun' at work.
You can follow Yuan on Twitter here and read her reporting on China's offshore police stations here.
This week's Isolation Inspiration: 'The White Lotus', Season 2, and The Playlist. Our interview with newly-minted astronaut Dr Meganne Christian, from February 2019, can be found in this episode: The Most Isolated Place on Earth'.
Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month at patreon.com/europeanspodcast (many currencies are available). You can also help new listeners find the show by leaving us a review or giving us five stars on Spotify.
03:04 Bad Week: Scarfgate
08:09 Good Week: The right to not be fun
15:35 Interview: Yuan Yang on China's 'overseas police stations'
29:20 Isolation Inspiration: Season 2 of 'The White Lotus' and 'The Playlist'
32:22 Happy Ending: Europe's new astronauts
Producer: Katy Lee
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
This podcast is part of the Are We Europe family. You can find more like-minded European podcasts at areweeurope.com/audio-family.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Europeans, fresh from celebrating our fifth anniversary in last week's episode. |
| 0:27.7 | I think we can call ourselves a mature podcast now, the Grand Dam of the Continent, if you will. |
| 0:33.1 | Although actually is five years old mature? I just realized as I said that, that like five-year-old humans are not mature. |
| 0:40.2 | I think you're going a bit far with the personification of this podcast. |
| 0:43.5 | I know I complain about personification of various things quite often, but maybe this is just a step too far. |
| 0:49.6 | Maybe like, you know how one year in human years is like several years and dog years? |
| 0:53.2 | Oh, yeah. |
| 0:53.9 | We're like 50 in podcast years. |
| 0:56.0 | I think that's actually true because I think most podcasts do finish after three months. |
| 1:01.2 | That's not statistically accurate, but something like that. |
| 1:04.3 | Something like that. |
| 1:05.1 | Anyway, we're still here. |
| 1:06.3 | And Dominic, you are freshly back from Estonia, aren't you? |
| 1:08.7 | Yes, I'm rather exhausted after a lovely trip to Tallinn. |
| 1:14.5 | It was great, although as is often the case with my work trips, |
| 1:18.3 | I was just basically inside a windowless theatre for three days. |
| 1:22.9 | Yay. |
| 1:23.5 | But I did have a very nice time, and I actually, weirdly, |
| 1:26.9 | there's something about being there |
| 1:28.3 | maybe with my lovely colleagues that I was crying, laughing a lot. I got into a really like |
| 1:33.4 | hysterical mood and I just had so much fun. Maybe it's because we didn't see any daylight. |
| 1:38.9 | Well, it looked very beautiful. I was very jealous of your snowy Instagram post. |
... |
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