Is China Trying to Sever Plato from NATO? Chang Che on Beijing's Embrace of the Greco-Roman Classics

Welcome to the Seneca podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. In this program, we look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends that can help us better understand what's happening in China's politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. Join me each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat. to how we think and talk about China. I'm Kaiser Gul coming to you this week from my home in Beijing.

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There's a particular kind of intellectual experience that I think many of us who follow China closely would would recognize. You encounter something, a a policy initiative, say, or a cultural trend, a political gesture that seems to demand an elaborate explanation. And then you catch yourself and you ask, wait, well Does it really? Would I be asking this question if the same thing were happening somewhere else, in some other country?

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