You'd be forgiven for thinking that China and South Africa weren't actual neighbors given all the pomp and ritual that surrounded South African President Jacob Zuma's recent state visit to China, a trip that saw China roll out the red carpet in a very uncritical fashion not often seen these days, with even Xinhua getting into the spirit of international camraderie with fulsome editorials praising the South African people and their international spirit.

And in the spirit of confusing co-host Kaiser and changing the balance of power in the studio, Jeremy is delighted to have invited a "real" South African to join us this week. And so our guest is John Bailey, Asia Correpondent of ENCA, the 24-hour television news broadcaster focusing on South African and African stories. In this hour-long show, John joins us to talk about what is happening in South Africa, and why the country's relations with China have taken such a rosy turn.

Enjoy Sinica? If you like this show and would like more to show up automatically on your iPhone as we publish them, subscribe to Sinica manually by selecting the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the File menu in iTunes and providing the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. We also welcome everyone to download this show directly from our server as a standalone mp3 file, and to send comments and suggestions for future shows to us at sinica@popupchinese.com. Enjoy!