Kaiser Kuo is the host of the Sinica Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China that has run since 2010. He was Head of Podcasts and Editor-at-Large for The China Project, and previously served as Director of International Communications for Baidu. In his over 20 years in China, his career ran the gamut from rock music to tech journalism to corporate communications. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and holds an M.A. from the University of Arizona. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Last Updated: March 14, 2024
Conversation
03.02.14
A Racist Farewell to Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke
Reacting to departing U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke’s February 27 farewell news conference in Beijing, the state-run China News Service published a critique by Wang Ping that called Ambassador Locke a “banana.”Kaiser Kuo:Banana or Twinkie for “white-on...
Sinica Podcast
03.01.14
In Line Behind a Billion People
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by Damien Ma, author of In Line Behind a Billion People, a new book for China-watchers looking at how China’s lack of affordable housing, its food and air pollution, and the country’s poor education...
Sinica Podcast
02.24.14
The Disabled in China
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by James Palmer and John Giszczack for a discussion of the disabled in China. Join us as we discuss how the Chinese language defines the concept of disability, what public attitudes are prevalent...
Conversation
02.19.14
China in ‘House of Cards’
China figures heavily in the second season of the Netflix series House of Cards, but how accurately does the show portray U.S.-China relations? Steven Jiang, a journalist for CNN in Beijing, binged-watched all thirteen recently-released web-only...
Sinica Podcast
02.14.14
Dissecting the 2014 Spring Festival Gala
from Sinica Podcast
A casual survey suggests that ninety-eight percent of Sinica listeners have at some point joined Chinese friends or family in watching the annual television spectacular known as the “Spring Festival Gala.” Sadly, whether from excessive pork...
Sinica Podcast
01.24.14
Talking About Taiwan
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo is joined by David Moser and Paul Mozur for an in-depth discussion about everyone’s favorite renegade province. This is a lively conversation that stretches from questions of Taiwanese personal identity to its media...
Sinica Podcast
12.27.13
Sinica Goes to the Movies
from Sinica Podcast
As much as expats in China like to complain about the state of Chinese film and television, this week Kaiser and Jeremy remind us that there is a lot of great art out there, too, in a show that asks the critical question of: what is worth our...
Sinica Podcast
12.20.13
Rectifying Chinese Names
from Sinica Podcast
Living in a community of China watchers, we are unceasingly assaulted by words and phrases for which definitions are unclear, or ambiguous, or over which there is controversy or disagreement. And so, bearing Confucius’ admonition that the most...
Sinica Podcast
12.10.13
Joe Biden and the ADIZ Fracas
On the weekend of November 23, Beijing announced the establishment of a new Air Defense Identification Zone. Covering a large swath of the East China Sea, the move was intended to assert China’s control over disputed islands in the region, and...
Sinica Podcast
12.03.13
One Journalist’s Journey through China
from Sinica Podcast
This week, Kaiser and Jeremy are pleased to be joined by Isabel Hilton, a longstanding British journalist whose youthful interest in China got her blacklisted by the British security services and the British Broadcasting Corporation and redirected...
Sinica Podcast
11.22.13
Doubling Down on Dengism
from Sinica Podcast
{vertical_photo_right}It’s an all-American (and all-star) lineup of guests this week, as Bill Bishop, Gady Epstein, and James Fallows join Kaiser for an in-depth discussion of the Third Plenary Session, the outcome of which has produced a rare...
Sinica Podcast
11.19.13
Partners and Rivals
from Sinica Podcast
Few will dispute that the Sino-American relationship constitutes the most important bilateral relationship of our time, shedding a sort of lunar influence on international politics which helps shape not only the dynamic of global tensions, but also...