Coming 21 years after the death of former Party Secretary Hu Yaobang, Premier Wen Jiabao's surprise eulogy to his former mentor last week was the subject of much discussion among China-watchers worldwide. In today's episode of Sinica we visit this speech and ask what it really tells us about the political landscape in China. Is there compelling evidence of an ongoing rift between a "populist" faction headed by Wen Jiabao, Hu Jintao, and Li Keqiang and a competing "princeling" elite represented by Xi Jinping? We also talk about the tragic earthquake that hit Qinghai last week, and its potential for ethnic aftershocks.Joining Kaiser Kuo this week are Gady Epstein, Beijing bureau chief for Forbes magazine and Guardian correspondent Tania Branigan, fresh back in Beijing after a reporting trip to the remote earthquake region and with a first-hand account of the rescue efforts there. We're also joined by Jeremiah Jenne, Dean of Chinese Studies at the IES program in Beijing, who helps put both events in historical perspective. You may know Jeremiah as Qing historian and author of the blog Jottings from the Granite Studio.If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to give us your take on things either in the comment section, or by writing us at sinica@popupchinese.com. And remember, to subscribe to the Sinica show through RSS, just open up iTunes, click on the "Advanced" menu and select "Subscribe to Podcast". When prompted, copy the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica into the box. Those of you who'd like to download this mp3 directly from our site can also grab it as a standalone mp3 file. Enjoy!
trevelyan
said on April 24, 2010
The top-down media coverage with Qinghai has actually been pretty impressive from an organizational perspective. It seems to have taken everyone a week or so to really get into the swing of things, but last Wednesday on the day of mourning the only thing on television was quite literally news coverage coming out of Qinghai. Those of you with satellite television may have missed this. The rest of us saw CCTV coverage replicated on pretty much every single channel, with a few stations running their own independent news coverage of the earthquake.Echo has an old friend who works for one of the broadcasters, and she called to complain jokingly. He told her that some of them at the station had been watching Pheonix earlier in the day when even its regular broadcasting was yanked and replaced with a newsfeed from Qinghai. According to what he'd heard, the reason for the supercoverage was related to Yu Shu being the hometown of the D.L. and the potential for complications. I really wonder if it is more for foreign or domestic coverage. I doubt anyone where I'm from could even place Qinghai on a map.For better or worse it is impressive to watch at least. Hope the rest of the rescue effort is being carried out with the same thoroughness.
orbital
said on April 24, 2010
The most impressive thing about the SARS hospital to me was that they made the building with slightly negative air pressure inside compared to the atmosphere outside. This was apparently done in order to prevent airborne transmission of the virus to outside the hospital.
fred
said on April 25, 2010
Really enjoyed this all around -- hosting, guests, topics, insights. Looking forward to more!
