I'm in Shaxi, a wonderful little town in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, and I was joined here by the Columbia economic historian Adam Tooze, who shared his thoughts on what he sees happening on the ground in China.
I love Adam Tooze and his clear eyed, concise analysis and grasp of the history and realities of modern China and of history and politics in general.
You two together is such a treat and hopefully one day he can be on the China Global South Project for an episode or many. I am sure Eric and Cobus would love him and his takes.
BTW, had a great smile on my face to hear Adam reference Type 56: The Story of China's Army. Such an obscure YT channel back in late 2024 that the algorithm recommended me out of the blue and now one of my favorites. I love how much new history Professor Clower is exposing me and others to. Such an excellent education on such a unique topic. Never thought I would hear it mentioned on Sinica.
Love Adam Tooze, and the two of you together! Please tell Adam to tell his friend Millennial Politics Influencer Derek Thompson to get with the program, lest he continues his trek down right-wing Neo-con circles when it comes to China. And maybe introduce Derek to you, Kaiser. Meanwhile, fantastic to hear Adam is earnestly learning Chinese! What incisive insights into the meaning of these changes to the history of Humanity, not just for China and Chinese people the world over. But I hope you both will do more for the younger generations by reframing all of this massive change as a set of massive, awesome "opportunities," rather than "problems." We owe it to our children to imagine and insist on a future of partnership between China and The West, rather than just friction, conflict, endless competition spiraling into a nihilist blackhole. As my little hapa 混血儿 is coming of age and connecting with so many other hapa 混血儿 the world over, they are and want to have a different kind of conversation- literally and figuratively. She is at PKU this summer meeting such a range of students from around the globe who are all already bilingual and working hard to become truly trilingual with the addition of Chinese - it is awe-inspiring and a window into a very different future that I hope will become an upward trend. 加油！
Excellent profound and seemingly unique observations, especially in the second half. I'm trying to get my very green sister and daughter to listen, but alas, they have a typical Western liberal mindset (like the Green Party Adam mentions) and resist any attempt to dig deeper into the reality of China's system and its progress in the energy transition.
What a brilliant conversation. I loved how Mr. Tooze fed on his own enthusiasm describing the centrality of China's development to understanding the history of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Thank you both for the great ride.
This was refreshing, I wish we could all be a little more like Adam Tooze. Whatever one's field, watching and learning from China's experience is increasingly going to be the normal and smart thing to do, much as most of us in the rest of the world have -- until recently -- been accustomed to tracking the US as the trend-setter. "Scale" is one aspect that I think most of us in the west just have no frame of reference to get our heads around. Take any problem - from city sewerage, to healthcare outcomes, to power gen and distribution, to civic engagement - and the issue of scale brings another dimension and set of problems to the processes, issues, and solutions we are used to. I think Adam commented on the extreme hubris implied in thinking that the west has already figured everything out. Yes! Most of my working life I spent working with business and government locally in Singapore, and I was always conscious of my thinking becoming "Singapore-scaled" over time. I always looked forward to the chance to work or visit in China as it was a welcome mental-reset to expand the mind and engender the empathy to appreciate that solutions to manage and govern a small city/country are unlikely to translate 1000x fold and vice versa. It was actually off a visit in 2007 that I came to the conclusion that the west was going to screw climate politics, and China was going to be the source of solutions - simply because it was pragmatic and existential, and it could do it at scale.
I love Adam Tooze and his clear eyed, concise analysis and grasp of the history and realities of modern China and of history and politics in general.
You two together is such a treat and hopefully one day he can be on the China Global South Project for an episode or many. I am sure Eric and Cobus would love him and his takes.
BTW, had a great smile on my face to hear Adam reference Type 56: The Story of China's Army. Such an obscure YT channel back in late 2024 that the algorithm recommended me out of the blue and now one of my favorites. I love how much new history Professor Clower is exposing me and others to. Such an excellent education on such a unique topic. Never thought I would hear it mentioned on Sinica.
Love Adam Tooze, and the two of you together! Please tell Adam to tell his friend Millennial Politics Influencer Derek Thompson to get with the program, lest he continues his trek down right-wing Neo-con circles when it comes to China. And maybe introduce Derek to you, Kaiser. Meanwhile, fantastic to hear Adam is earnestly learning Chinese! What incisive insights into the meaning of these changes to the history of Humanity, not just for China and Chinese people the world over. But I hope you both will do more for the younger generations by reframing all of this massive change as a set of massive, awesome "opportunities," rather than "problems." We owe it to our children to imagine and insist on a future of partnership between China and The West, rather than just friction, conflict, endless competition spiraling into a nihilist blackhole. As my little hapa 混血儿 is coming of age and connecting with so many other hapa 混血儿 the world over, they are and want to have a different kind of conversation- literally and figuratively. She is at PKU this summer meeting such a range of students from around the globe who are all already bilingual and working hard to become truly trilingual with the addition of Chinese - it is awe-inspiring and a window into a very different future that I hope will become an upward trend. 加油！
Excellent profound and seemingly unique observations, especially in the second half. I'm trying to get my very green sister and daughter to listen, but alas, they have a typical Western liberal mindset (like the Green Party Adam mentions) and resist any attempt to dig deeper into the reality of China's system and its progress in the energy transition.
What a brilliant conversation. I loved how Mr. Tooze fed on his own enthusiasm describing the centrality of China's development to understanding the history of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Thank you both for the great ride.
This was refreshing, I wish we could all be a little more like Adam Tooze. Whatever one's field, watching and learning from China's experience is increasingly going to be the normal and smart thing to do, much as most of us in the rest of the world have -- until recently -- been accustomed to tracking the US as the trend-setter. "Scale" is one aspect that I think most of us in the west just have no frame of reference to get our heads around. Take any problem - from city sewerage, to healthcare outcomes, to power gen and distribution, to civic engagement - and the issue of scale brings another dimension and set of problems to the processes, issues, and solutions we are used to. I think Adam commented on the extreme hubris implied in thinking that the west has already figured everything out. Yes! Most of my working life I spent working with business and government locally in Singapore, and I was always conscious of my thinking becoming "Singapore-scaled" over time. I always looked forward to the chance to work or visit in China as it was a welcome mental-reset to expand the mind and engender the empathy to appreciate that solutions to manage and govern a small city/country are unlikely to translate 1000x fold and vice versa. It was actually off a visit in 2007 that I came to the conclusion that the west was going to screw climate politics, and China was going to be the source of solutions - simply because it was pragmatic and existential, and it could do it at scale.
Sounds like a good listen...happy to come down to Dali after Shanghai WAIC to talk AI....