How the Chinese economic downturn is affecting all kinds of people. How real estate meltdown, with enough unfinished empty apartments to fill the population of Germany, is at the center of it all. How tech entrepreneurs are mysteriously disappearing, and how college graduates don’t want to work. 

Guests: Keyu Jin, London School of Economics, author of New China Playbook; Elsie Chen, a member of China’s “lying down” generation, now a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.

Elsie Chen’s New York Times article about lying flat. She interviews Luo Huazhong, the factory worker, who quit his job, went back to his rural village. His post about his lifestyle decision went viral, and inspired a movement dedicated to opting out. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/world/asia/china-slackers-tangping.html

A roundtable discussion with Keyu Jin at the Fairbank Center at Harvard. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=357QIFs9FXc

Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions.

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Two young CIA agents were flown to northern China in 1952, part of a bizarre Cold War operation to overthrow Mao Zedong. The plane crashed. The two Americans were arrested, and jailed for 20 years. We fast forward to today and turn the tables: How does China spy on the US now? Who is ahead in the fight over the new technologies?

Guests: John DeLury, author, Agents of Subversion; Nigel Inkster, former director operations, MI6; former agent in Beijing. 

Details about John Delury’s compelling book that tells the story of how two CIA operatives were captured in China and how they endured 20 years in jail. 

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501765971/agents-of-subversion/

Nigel Inkster’s book about the US and China, the two big tech competitors.   

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Great_Decoupling/K4xfzQEACAAJ?hl=en

Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions.

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Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met on a basketball court in China in 2011 when they were vice presidents. They later toasted each other in Washington. They’ve spent many hours together. Much has changed. Can they hold the center together? 

Guest: Minxin Pei, Chinese born professor of government Claremont McKenna College; author of Surveillance State and other books on China.

 Jane’s first podcast about how Washington got it all wrong on Xi Jinping. 

https://shorensteincenter.org/podcast-on-the-trail-of-xi-jinping/

Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions.

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From his studio in Boston, Yo-Yo Ma tells us how music eases tensions between American and Chinese people, even as Washington and Beijing are at each other’s throats. 

Guests: Yo Yo Ma; Hai Ye Ni, principal cellist, Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra

Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions.

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China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal even as arms control treaties are shredded. Can China and the U.S. come to the table and agree to nuclear arms control accords? Should Artificial Intelligence control nuclear weapons?  

Guest: Tong Zhao; Chinese born nuclear expert now at Carnegie China in DC 

Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions.

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Apple, one of the world’s most valuable companies, depends on China, America’s biggest adversary, to manufacture its iPhones. Apple employs millions of contract workers in China. Is this marriage heading for the rocks? What will Apple and China do to keep their marriage intact? 

Guests: Prof. Willy Shih, Harvard Business School; Wayne Ma, tech reporter, The Information

Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions.

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An American surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet collide near the Chinese coast in 2001.  Smart diplomacy by a former American Navy Admiral results in the release of two dozen American airmen and women from detention in China. Today, tensions between the countries are much higher, their planes are flying within feet of each other. There are fears a similar collision could result in war.  

Guest: Admiral Scott Swift, former Commander US Pacific Fleet.

Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions.

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Our trailer features jaw-dropping audio from the cockpit of an American spy plane flying over the South China Sea. It’s early 2001. A Chinese fighter jet is getting perilously close to the slow moving American plane. Some weeks later, a collision occurred. What happened next? Listen to episode 1 of Face Off. Our trailer also dazzles with interview clips from our episodes covering tech, spies, the Chinese economy and more. 

Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions.

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