Xiong'an: Techno-natural utopia or authoritarian folly?

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

🗓️ 4 May 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Andrew Stokols, a Ph.D. researcher at MIT who has been studying the “techno-natural utopia” that the Chinese government is now building a hundred kilometers southwest of Beijing: Xiong’an. Andrew breaks down why he sees it as an urban manifestation of the fundamental ideas embodied in Xi Jinping’s ideological vision for China.

02:02 - Xiong’an New Area as a bold vision for China

07:36 - Planned stages for the development of Xiong’an. Milestones in 2035 and 2050.

12:03 - Cities as expressions of political ideas

15:32 - Different facets of the Xiong’an as the legacy of Xi Jinping

20:03 - The elements of ecological civilization intended to be built into the new city

27:41 - Technologies employed with the intention of making Xiong’an a smart city

31:56 - The idea of incentivizing the digital yuan into the city of Xiong’an

34:55 - Xiong’an as an expression of Chineseness

40:05 - How is Xiong’an discussed in the English-language press outside of China?

47:59 - Approaches to technology and nature in Western and Chinese discourses. The

concept of techno-naturalism.

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

Recommendations:

Andrew: The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development by Shiping Tang

Kaiser: Five Families by Selwyn Raab

Mentioned:

Andrew’s article on Xiong’an: Chinas techno-natural utopia: A deep dive into Xiong’an

Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade by Anna Greenspan

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Cynica podcast, the weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with the China Project.
0:15.3	Subscribe to access from the China Project to get, well, access, access to not only our great daily newsletter, but to all of the original writing on our website at The China Project to get, well, access, access to not only our great daily newsletter, but to all
0:21.6	of the original writing on our website at theChinaproject.com as well. We've got reported
0:27.6	stories, essays and editorials, great explainers, and trackers, regular columns, and of course
0:32.9	a growing library of podcasts. We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations to its
0:38.5	ingenious entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in
0:43.4	China's Xinjiang region to China's ambitious plans to shift the economy onto a post-carbon footing.
0:50.6	It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world.
0:56.2	We cover China with neither fear nor favor.
0:59.4	I'm Kaiser Guo, coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
1:03.5	I am heading back to China at the end of June for my first visit since October 2019,
1:09.3	which is the longest I've been away from China since the gap
1:12.3	between 1981 and 1986, I think. One of the things that I am determined to try and go see
1:18.7	is Xunan New District, the futuristic city around a lake just 100 kilometers or so,
1:25.2	south by southwest of downtown Beijing. It was first announced in 2015
1:28.9	while I was still living in China,
1:30.9	and now it's already sort of on its way.
1:33.9	It's supposed to be all the things that Beijing isn't
1:36.7	green and sustainable and uncongested
1:39.7	and human-scale and highly walkable.
1:43.1	It is touted as a truly smart city, and it's loaded up with sensors and all powered by AI and all digitized.
1:50.4	So today on Sinica, we are talking all things, Xunan, why it's being built, what it's supposed to represent,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kaiser Kuo, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Kaiser Kuo and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.