Brilliant discussion, guys. Thank you. Always a pleasure to listen!

For android users (non-iTunes), Sinica is also available on dogcatcher and pocket casts.

@Escoffery.s --Yeah I always have to listen to the recommendations at least 3x if not more to catch all the recommendations. I mentioned it was helpful that the recommendations be listed but got no response. It sounds like David mentioned a book but not the title or author. Sorry. Maybe someone from Sinica will respond via comments since it looks like they amended their note on email to only be on future recommendations and nothing else.

Kaiser,

I’m glad you brought up the point about the 80% approval rating of Xi in the Osnos piece... I also homed in on this.

I agree with you how odd it is that the profile painted a decidedly negative picture, and then tossed out that number without any explanation. I imagine the general reader would be tempted to make an apples-to-apples comparison with American political polling, and that is a mistake. I don’t have answers, but some things to consider about how the two might be fundamentally different:

- American pols often score so low in part, I feel, because of the overwhelmingly negative atmosphere in America when it comes to discussing politics. And a yes-or-no approval question also leaves very little room for nuance in understanding how people in fact consider politicians and issues. In fact a yes/no answer might be entirely misleading, or just a teenie part of the picture. My favorite example was the street interviews done about Obamacare... many people said they vehemently opposed it, but then agreed with many (if not all) of its basic points when it was broken out for them. Now that yes/no answer doesn’t seem the same... In short, a 5% approval rating doesn’t mean imminent revolution... and of course we know this.

- This is purely speculation on my part, but a legitimate thing consider... Americans are also familiar with polling, and know what that phone call is like. Is it difficult to image that an unsuspecting Chinese person, getting a call from a polling agency they likely do not know, might react differently? Might it not in fact be an off-putting event, instead a fun chance to bitch to a stranger? My point is that the water is different, even if I can’t say exactly how... Again in short, an 80% approval rating doesn’t mean everyone is high on Xi. Everybody does not know this.

The thing is, the supposedly high approval ratings in China is a number that crops up fairly often... and I am annoyed by it every time. Those raw numbers accurately reflect exactly one thing: what people said on the phone at that given moment. I suspect that having no context would lead Western readers to unconscious place those numbers in a Western context...

Tom