Sinica Podcast: Party Congress Preview

You know you’ve hit the big time in China when you’re invited as a guest on Kaiser Kuo’s Sinica Podcast.  This week, I joined Kaiser’s co-host Jeremy Goldkorn of danwei.com for a discussion about China’s upcoming leadership transition.  I really recommend listening to the 45-minute session, not so much for my own comments — which will be familiar to anyone who regularly reads this blog — but for the great stories and insights from my two fellow guests, John Garnaut of  the Sydney Morning Herald and Jamil Anderlini of the Financial Times, both of whom have just published brand new books on the Bo Xilai scandal.  You can listen to the podcast here or download it here.

While you are listening, I highly suggest you check out the provided links, including the China Economic Review article I wrote in 2010 (and mentioned in the podcast) on why China needs a new “Southern Tour,” as well as the “primer” on China’s leadership transition I wrote last year, which Kaiser was kind enough to plug as his “reading recommendation” for the week.  You can also listen to (and link to) my own recommendations, which focus on the impact the receding Arctic ice cap and cheap U.S. natural gas could have on China (and the world).

Of course, we recorded our conversation before the New York Times published its taboo-shattering expose on the hidden fortune controlled by Premier Wen Jiabao’s family members, otherwise I suspect it would have ranked high among our discussion topics.  Note, however, that I did mention the issue — including Mrs. Wen’s connection to the diamond trade — in my “primer” (which is just one reason I suspect that article, and now this entire blog, is blocked in China).