The Symbolism of the Flying Tigers: Peking University's Wang Dong on the American Volunteer Group and its Historical and Diplomatic Usages
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.7 • 710 Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Sinica, I chat with Peking University's Professor Wang Dong (王栋), an international relations scholar at the School of International Studies at Peking University, where he also serves as Deputy Director and Executive Director of the Office for Humanities and Social Sciences and the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding. Professor Wang’s scholarship and public commentary focus on U.S.–China relations, Cold War history, and the uses of historical memory in diplomacy. He has been an especially thoughtful voice in connecting the Flying Tigers legacy with today’s efforts to stabilize and strengthen the people-to-people ties between our two countries.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Cynica Podcast, a week |
| 0:11.2 | discussion of current affairs in China. |
| 0:13.4 | In this program, we'll look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, |
| 0:17.8 | and cultural trends that can help us better understand what's happening in China's politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. |
| 0:24.8 | Join me each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. |
| 0:32.6 | I'm Kaiser Guo coming to you this week from Beidat, Peking University in Beijing, my favorite city in the world. |
| 0:38.9 | Cynica is supported this year by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, |
| 0:44.0 | a National Resource Center for the Study of East Asia. |
| 0:47.0 | The Cynica podcast will remain free, but if you work for an organization that believes in what I'm doing with the show and with the newsletter, |
| 0:54.0 | please consider lending your support. You can get me, as always, at Cineca Pod. organization that believes in what I'm doing with the show and with the newsletter, please |
| 0:54.3 | consider lending your support. You can get me, as always, at SenecaPod at gmail.com. |
| 1:00.2 | And listeners, please support my work by becoming a paying subscriber at Senecapodcast.com. |
| 1:04.9 | You will enjoy, in addition to the podcast, the complete transcript of the show, essays for me, |
| 1:10.4 | as well as writing and podcasts |
| 1:11.7 | from some of your favorite China-focused columnists and commentators. And, of course, |
| 1:16.5 | the knowledge that you are helping me do what I honestly believe is very important work. So, |
| 1:20.6 | do check out the page and see all that's on offer and consider helping me out. We're going to |
| 1:26.1 | turn today to a story from, well, the darkest days of |
| 1:29.4 | the Second World War, one that has echoed through generations of both Chinese and Americans. |
| 1:35.2 | The story of the Flying Tigers, the Fei Kuduay, the American volunteer group of pilots, |
| 1:41.1 | who came to China even before the United States entered the war after Pearl Harbor, |
| 1:44.7 | and who became legends for their exploits in the skies over Burma, over Yunnan, and beyond. |
... |
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