Insurance scam? Industrial accident? Political machinations? After August excursions to lands of clean air and English-language media, the Sinica team is back this week with a show covering the astonishing explosions that gutted the Binhai economic development zone in Tianjin last week. As the Chinese government struggles to deal with public pressures for greater transparency and conspiracy theories mount, we take a closer look at what we know and don't about the port explosion.

Enjoy Sinica? Join Kaiser Kuo and David Moser this week as they talk with two journalists who covered the aftermath of the Tianjin explosions in person from the Chinese equivalent of ground zero: Julie Makinen who heads the China bureau for the LA Times and Fergus Ryan who covers China for The Guardian. Please feel welcome to listen online or download our show as a standalone mp3 file and share with friends and colleagues.
 said on
August 24, 2015
Episode content:

TIANJIN EXPLOSION | 2 block away | CLOSEST VIDEO | OVER 200 dead estimated on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q04fV4j7A1w

Ground Zero at Chublic Opinion (Aug. 18, 2015)

http://chublicopinion.com/2015/08/18/ground-zero/

Rumors on social media claiming to be from the American Embassy

https://twitter.com/DTWatanabe/status/632914845206052864

Security Message for U.S. Citizens: Tianjin Chemical Explosions by the Embassy of the United States

http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/mobile/08172015u.html

Recommendations:

Julie Makinen

Just How Tall Can Roller Coasters Get? by Mekado Murphy in The New York Times (Aug. 17, 2015)

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/17/travel/17Coasters.html

David Moser

学习进行时

http://www.news.cn/politics/xxjxs/

Fergus Ryan

Tianjin: Unreal City, Real People by Matthew Stinson on medium.com (Aug. 16 2015)

https://medium.com/@stinson/portrait-of-an-unreal-city-9484dea3589d

Nuzzel app for following Twitter trends

http://nuzzel.com/

Kaiser Kuo

A Day In The Life of China's First Cyber Dissident by Matt Sheehan in the Huffington Post (Aug. 5, 2015)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chinas-first-cyber-dissident_55acb432e4b065dfe89ea4a6
 said on
August 25, 2015
Thanks for a great sinica-cast. It's so nice to hear from experienced journalists and knowledgeable residents in China!
 said on
August 25, 2015
A nice profile of Michael Pettis (which lauds him as "the man who saw China's market crash coming"):

http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/chinas-market-crash-and-the-man-who-saw-it-coming/61193

It sure would be nice to hear him discuss the current situation with the Chinese markets on Sinica.
 said on
August 26, 2015
great podcast as usual... thanks!!
 said on
August 29, 2015
I was wondering if you guys can post the send-off interview with Bill Bishop, and I'm really looking forward to that. Or maybe it won't be released? Thanks!

 said on
August 30, 2015
@chrisgofly,

I'm looking forward to it too. The show is coming up, but not this week.

--dave
Mark Lesson Studied