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PODCAST

The Little Red Podcast

Graeme Smith and Louisa Lim

The Little Red Podcast: interviews and chat celebrating China beyond the Beijing beltway. Hosted by Graeme Smith, China studies academic at the Australian National University"s Department of Pacific Affairs and Louisa Lim, former China correspondent for the BBC and NPR, now with the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University. We are the 2018 winners of podcast of the year in the News & Current Affairs category of the Australian Podcast Awards. Follow us @limlouisa and @GraemeKSmith, and

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All Episodes

52:55

Cat Years in Cat Country: Sci-Fi in China

The Little Red Podcast ·

2023/08/29

Just as satirical writers struggled in Trump's America, China's sci-fi writers are facing a challenge: how do you write in a world where reality is more like science fiction than science fiction itself? Added to that are the perils of popularity, with everyone from Netflix to the Communist Party embracing Chinese science fiction. To explore China's metaverse of sci-fi, Loiusa and Graeme are joined by Emily Jin, a science fiction and fantasy translator who’s also a PhD candidate at Yale and

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47:41

Gone to ground: China’s rare earths strategy

The Little Red Podcast ·

2023/08/07

Beijing's recent ban on the export of two rare metals represents the latest front in the global battle to control chipmaking technology. Now there are fears China could block the export of rare earths, over which it has a stranglehold. How close are we to that nuclear option? To find out, Louisa and Graeme are joined by Martijn Rasser, a former senior intelligence officer and analyst with the CIA, who is now the managing director of the Netherlands-based Datenna, and Jon Hykaway, the director and

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39:41

China’s Best Mate: New Zealand’s Muddled China Ties

The Little Red Podcast ·

2023/06/27

New Zealand is in Beijing's good books, attracting state media praise as setting 'a good example' for other countries in its ties, as Prime Minister Chris Hipkins jets into China. He's said his message is crystal clear: New Zealand is open for business. But critics say the country's policy is muddled and ambiguous, despite Chinese encroachment. Two ethnic Chinese MPs have been expelled over their links to Beijing, and a prominent New Zealand China academic was targeted with office break-ins. To

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43:32

China Beyond the Ends of the Earth: Welcome to the...

The Little Red Podcast ·

2023/06/14

In the final episode exploring China's Strategic New Frontiers, we are investigating China's growing cyberpower ambitions. On the National Cyber Power index, Beijing is already the world's number two cyberpower, behind only the US. Its cyberdoctrine includes promoting cybersovereignty, constructing internet standards and infrastructure, and playing a bigger role in cyber governance bodies. To ask what this means for the future of the Internet, Louisa and Graeme are joined by Konstantinos Komaitis, a

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42:46

China Beyond the Ends of the Earth: The Polar Express

The Little Red Podcast ·

2023/05/04

China appears to have restarted construction on its fifth Antarctic station for the first time since 2018. It’s just one sign that Beijing is trying to increase its footprint in the world’s coldest regions. It already calls itself a near-Arctic state and is planning for an ice-free shipping route across the top of the world. This month, to discuss the drivers behind China’s polar ambitions, Graeme and Louisa are joined by Eyck Freyman of the Arctic Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School of

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43:28

China Beyond the Ends of the Earth: Rolling in the Deep

The Little Red Podcast ·

2023/03/29

China's reaching not just for the stars, but also for the deepest ocean depths. It's even parked its deepwater submersible in the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the world's oceans, and planted flags on the ocean bed. This month, Graeme and Louisa are joined by China Ocean Institute CEO Tabitha Mallory and Tiffany Ma, the senior director of Bower Group Asia, to talk about how the Great Game is playing out on our seabeds.Image: Caulophryne pelagica [Angler Fish] D. Shale, CC BY 2.0

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44:40

China Beyond the Ends of the Earth: Space

The Little Red Podcast ·

2023/02/28

In a new series of episodes, we’re examining how China is pushing the boundaries of science and territory. First up, China’s space program, the envy of space scientists worldwide for seemingly bottomless pots of funding from government, and increasingly, venture capital. China's space programme, with a space telescope that is constantly being upgraded and its uber-for-satellites, is no longer just cloning Soviet tech. To explore the ecology of China’s space sector and ask what’s driving their

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47:57

COVID infections: The New Bumper Harvest

The Little Red Podcast ·

2023/02/06

In a few short months, Chinese officials have gone from COVID cover-up to competing over who has the highest number of infections. After urbanites flocked back to the countryside for lunar New Year, the Party that ran the world’s strictest prevention regime now presides over the world’s largest and most ambitious experiment in herd immunity. To explore how this dramatic change unfolded, Louisa and Graeme are joined by Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign

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48:52

The Death of Covid Zero?

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/12/15

Finally, China’s sloughing off the Zero Covid policy it’s embraced for three years. This followed a spasm of discontent, with people taking to the streets to demonstrate against Zero Covid, in protests that quickly spilled over to demand democracy and Xi Jinping's resignation. Beijing’s adaptive authoritarianism is in full sight, as the state eases Covid controls and reverses three years of rhetoric on the dangers of the virus. To ask whether the protests were a flash in the pan, we’re joined by

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49:17

Controlling the future: Inside China’s surveillance...

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/11/28

“Controlling data means controlling the future.” Those are not George Orwell's words, but instead were uttered in 2015 by Jack Ma, founder of tech company Alibaba. Though Ma has since been brought to heel by the Chinese state, the CCP is constantly expanding the way it harnesses data to bolster its techno-authoritarian rule. Chinese companies now lead the world in AI and facial recognition technology, though they are helped by surprising allies in corporate America. To find out how Xi Jinping’s

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54:34

Spies, Lies and Peaceful Rise

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/10/14

China's political event of the decade - its 20th Party Congress - will confirm Xi Jinping's third term as leader of the CCP and could even bestow on him the title of ‘chairman’. With an economy crippled by zero-COVID and global public opinion about China turning precipitously negative, it seems an age since China’s leaders promised a ‘peaceful rise’. Was this peaceful rise stymied by hardliners, or was it all an elaborate influence operation orchestrated by China's spies? For two very different

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44:13

Cambodia: China’s first client state?

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/09/19

The Southeast Asian nation has historically been seen as China's first client state, with the Khmer Rouge's hardline interpretation of Maoism leading to the horror of the Killing Fields. Four decades on, Cambodia still enjoys the best and the worst of what the People’s Republic can offer. While aid from Beijing has built world-class infrastructure and provided clean drinking water to Cambodians, Chinese companies are also responsible for a tidal wave of scams, illegal casinos and even recent

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44:26

Herbal Gold: Chinese medicine, COVID and the CCP

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/08/02

Chinese households under lockdown have lacked food, company, and access to medical care. But they’ve had an almost endless supply of a traditional Chinese medicine treatment called Lianhua Qingwen, made by Yiling Pharmaceuticals. Chinese students abroad even have this drug delivered to their doorsteps in healthcare packages, and demand for it among diaspora communities has seen panic-buying and hugely inflated prices. In this episode, we explore why the Chinese state has invested huge sums in

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47:19

Cheongsams and Coppers: Beijing's Stealth...

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/06/30

It’s now been twenty-five years since Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty with a pledge not to change Hong Kong’s way of life for fifty years. In actual fact, Beijing's stealth infiltration of Hong Kong began long before the territory's return, with United Front work targeting certain sectors of the population. In this episode, we delve deep into Hong Kong's history to pinpoint how Beijing used the cheongsam makers and policemen - among others - to infiltrate society. Graeme is joined by

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45:49

Shanghaied: Living with Zero Covid

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/06/06

After two long months, Shanghai's brutal lockdown is over in name, but Xi Jinping is telling officials to ‘unswervingly adhere’ to Zero COVID, despite the costs. Shanghai’s lockdown brought chaos to global supply chains and torpedoed China’s once-sacred economic growth targets. It’s also taken a toll on the city’s residents; once the nation’s most privileged, they had a front row seat to the arbitrary nature of government decrees. To unpack what happens

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38:25

Gimme, gimme, gimme a Han after midnight: China’s...

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/05/11

For the past year, China has been in the grip of a crackdown on niangpao, or ‘sissy men’, with the People’s Daily warning that effeminate men are ‘corrupting a generation.’ It’s a movement that is having a chilling effect well beyond influencers having their social media accounts closed, with the Ministry of Education even issuing guidelines on how to ‘cultivate masculinity’ in boys from kindergarten onwards. To discuss what lies behind the masculinity crisis, Louisa and Graeme are joined by UNSW’s

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41:46

Kevin Rudd: Is War With China Inevitable?

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/04/28

As Australia’s Defence Minister warns his nation to ‘prepare for war’ with China, there’s a growing feeling of inevitability about a future conflict between China and the United States. Against this rather bleak backdrop, we hear from one global figure who has had unusual access to China's leaders: Australia's former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The President and CEO of the Asia Society, he describes himself as a Sinologist at the tables of power. He's probably the only Mandarin-speaking world leader

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44:39

Ukraine: A Win-Win for China

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/04/06

How is Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine redrawing the geopolitical landscape? In this episode, we examine China’s interests in the conflict and explore the limits of their ‘no limits’ agreement with Russia. To ask whether the geopolitical balance is shifting in favour of an ‘axis of autocracies’, Louisa and Graeme are joined by Alexander Gabuev, senior fellow and Russian chair in the Asia-Pacific Programme at the Carnegie Moscow Centre and Maria Repnikova,

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43:59

Elite Capture: A CCP Primer in Making Friends and...

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/03/09

America's elites love to talk about China's '5000 years of civilization', but such language - which could come straight from the pages of the China Daily - serves to amplify Beijing's talking points. In this way and due to their own business dealings with China, some American elites are helping Beijing grow more powerful. In his book, America Second: How America's Elites Are Making China Stronger, journalist Isaac Stone Fish zeroes in on the case of the former US secretary of State Henry Kissinger,

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45:37

Caste Aside: The Future for China's Peasants

The Little Red Podcast ·

2022/02/02

By any metric, China's rural residents face massive disadvantages compared to their urban counterparts. More than half of rural teenagers are cognitively delayed, and longstanding policies restrict their mobility and access to vital services. China's peasants were one of Chairman Mao's favoured classes and the backbone of his Revolution, but what place is there for the half-a-billion rural dwellers in Xi Jinping's China? To discuss whether common prosperity can trickle down to the countryside,

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115 results

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