Jude Blanchette on the Select Committee and the American moral panic over China

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

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

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2023

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A second full episode this week for you Sinica listeners! Jude Blanchette joins to talk about the House Select Committee on United States Competition with the Chinese Communist Party, and all that is wrong with it, from its framing of the CCP as an "existential threat" to its focus on the CCP, and how all of this adds up to an embarrassing moral panic that distracts from the serious issues the U.S. confronts when it comes to China.

4:37 – What’s wrong with the Select Committee’s framing of China as an “existential threat,” and why the first hearing was an embarrassment

9:01 – The current moment as a moral panic over China

12:09 – Domestic political drivers of U.S. China policy

15:04 – Why the United States versus the Chinese Communist Party is the wrong framing too

22:46 – Is this more like McCarthyism — or antisemitism?

28:58 – The downstream effects of U.S. tech containment policy toward China

42:01 – The advantage of simplistic, Manichean messaging

46:15 – Prioritizing U.S. issues with China: why Confucius Institutes and TikTok are so far down the to-do list, and what really matters48:59 – And what are the real issues that deserve priority?

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com

Recommendations:

Jude: Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon by Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam, from Audible

Kaiser: This podcast interview with Angela Rasmussen, the virologist who has been in the front lines fighting back against the resurgent lab leak theory, from the Slate What Next: TBD podcast

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Cynica podcast, weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in
0:13.2	partnership with the China Project.
0:15.5	Subscribe to access from the China Project to get, well, access, to not only our great daily
0:20.5	newsletter, but to all
0:21.7	of the original writing on our website at theChinaproject.com. We've got reported stories, essays,
0:28.5	and editorials, great explainers and trackers, regular columns, and of course, a growing library
0:34.5	of podcasts. We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations to its ingenious
0:39.1	entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in China's Xinjiang
0:44.6	region, to Beijing's ambitious plans to shift the Chinese economy onto a post-carbon footing.
0:50.5	It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world.
0:56.4	We cover China with neither fear nor favor.
0:59.3	I'm Kaiser Guo, coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
1:03.1	I hadn't originally intended to do a separate show about the Congressional Select Committee,
1:08.2	the United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition in
1:12.0	between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, to use its full official name.
1:16.0	But after it televised its first hearing in prime time on Tuesday night, and after seeing
1:21.1	so little forceful pushback against the hyperbole and the alarmism, I've changed my mind.
1:27.5	So thankfully, my good friend Jude Blanchett, Freeman Chair at the Center for Strategic
1:31.5	and International Studies, CSIS, was not only able to make time but willing to share his
1:36.1	thoughts.
1:36.9	Jude is, of course, familiar to anyone who's listened to this show, as well as anyone who
1:40.7	listens to his terrific podcast, Pekingology, on which he interviews up-and-coming
	...

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