Welcome to the Cynica podcast, the weekly discussion of current affairs in China.

In this program, we'll look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends

that can help us better understand what's happening in China's politics, foreign relations, economics, and society.

Join me each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China.

I'm Kaiser Guo coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Cynica is supported this year by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of

Wisconsin-Madison, a National Resource Center for the Study of East Asia.

The Cynica podcast will remain free, but if you work for an organization that believes in what I'm

doing with the podcast, please consider lending your support. You can get me at SenecaPod at gmail.com.

And listeners, please support my work at www.cenapodcast.com.

Become a subscriber and enjoy, in addition to the podcast, the complete transcript of the show,

essays for me, as well as writings and podcasts

from some of your favorite China-focused columnists and commentators,

with offerings like the China Global South podcast, James Carter's This Week in China's History,

The Ultimate China Bookshelf by Paul French, Andrew Methyn's Seneca Chinese Phraise of the Week,

and much more.

Each week when I introduce the show, I talk about how I try through the guests that I invite

onto the program and the conversations we have to bring more light and less heat to how we think

and talk about China. For me, this isn't just boilerplate, it's a mission statement of sorts.

Well, this week, I am delighted to be joined on

Seneca by someone who I don't think it's too presumptuous to say is also very much dedicated to

that same mission. Jane Hayward is lecturer in China and Global Affairs at the Lao China Institute,

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