For the last few days, international attention has focused on the small fishing town of Wukan in southern China where villagers are in open revolt. Simmering tensions caused by corruption and illegal land sales have escalated into an armed uprising by locals against security forces and local government, both of which have been driven into at least temporary exile.

Starting with the question of what exactly is happening down south, our conversation on Sinica this week eventually turns to a more general discussion of how China's liberal intelligentsia seems to be grappling with the idea of reform: whether it is possible and what it might look like if it ever arrives? Joining Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn for this discussion are Charlie Custer of the excellent translation blog China Geeks as well as Ed Wong of the New York Times. We're also delighted to have the stalwart Gady Epstein back with us, now in his new role as China correspondent for The Economist.

Please note: we ran into unexpectedly severe technical problems recording this show. Heavy editing has cleaned up the worst of the mess, but there are still noticeable problems. Our apologies in advance for the reduced audio quality, and we hope you still find the show reasonably coherent and listenable.
 said on
January 11, 2012
Hi! Just to let you know, the link to China Geeks seems to send me to the wrong website. It looks like maybe it's trying to connect me to chinageeks.com. On a Google search I find that the blog is at chinageeks.org. I really enjoy Popup Chinese and Sinica...thanks for all your hard work!
Mark Lesson Studied