Not a Master Plan: The Real History of China's Rare Earth Dominance, with Gloria Xiong and Jessica Chen Weiss

Welcome to the Cineca 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 Gula coming to you this week from my home in Beijing.

Listeners, please support my work by becoming a paid subscriber at cinecapodcast.com. Yes, there are a lot of Substacks out there, and yes, they do start to add up, but this is a very worthwhile subscription. In addition to Seneca, you get great content from wonderful partners of mine like Trivium and the China Global South project and of course Jay Carter's wonderful this week in China's history. So please do subscribe so I can continue to bring you these conversations and lots more. When Seneca started back in 2010, it was still possible for someone to participate meaningfully in the discourse on China, on the US-China relationship, equipped with not much more than, you know, a decent grasp of the contours of modern Chinese history, a sense of the geography, a familiarity with the the major party leaders and their portfolios.

you know, a working knowledge of Chinese political thought and the current slogans, you know, for good measure a a couple of good internet memes, you know, to add color and levity, the ability to scan a Sinhua readout and read a little bit between the lines and, you know, maybe a a baijo tolerance that would be sufficient to survive a provincial banquet with your dignity mostly intact. But man, things have changed. These days to weigh in with any expectation that you'll be taken seriously. It feels like you have to know all of that and a great deal more.

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