Chinese Whispers
A fortnightly podcast from the Spectator on the latest in Chinese politics, society, and more. From Huawei to Hong Kong, Cindy Yu talks to experts, journalists, and long time China-watchers on what you need to know about China.Podcasts
Battling the official narrative China's 'underground historians'
Published: Nov. 13, 2023, 4:22 p.m.Duration: 35 minutes 25 seconds
Listed in: News
Rethinking Chinese food with Fuchsia Dunlop
Published: Oct. 30, 2023, 5:26 p.m.Duration: 50 minutes 22 seconds
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'The mask has slipped' Tuvia Gering on China, Israel and Hamas
Published: Oct. 16, 2023, 4:08 p.m.Duration: 43 minutes 4 seconds
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Does China care what Britain thinks?
Published: Oct. 2, 2023, 12:50 p.m.Duration: 1 hour 1 minute 41 seconds
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What we know about Beijing's spies
Published: Sept. 18, 2023, 4:21 p.m.Duration: 31 minutes 58 seconds
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Is China still a Confucian country?
Published: Sept. 4, 2023, 4:30 p.m.Duration: 28 minutes 51 seconds
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What Beidaihe reveals about the changing nature of Communist leadership
Published: Aug. 21, 2023, 2:21 p.m.Duration: 25 minutes 58 seconds
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Does China need a new economic playbook?
Published: Aug. 7, 2023, 11:01 a.m.Duration: 41 minutes 22 seconds
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Did some good come from the Qings dying century?
Published: July 24, 2023, 5:43 p.m.Duration: 36 minutes 47 seconds
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Beijing and Prigozhin: what does China think of the Wagner uprising?
Published: June 30, 2023, 3:50 p.m.Duration: 36 minutes 5 seconds
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How divided is Europe on China?
Published: June 19, 2023, 3:09 p.m.Duration: 38 minutes 51 seconds
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Why China won't invade Taiwan
Published: June 5, 2023, 2:51 p.m.Duration: 40 minutes 47 seconds
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How China's mail-order brides are taking back control
Published: May 15, 2023, 12:38 p.m.Duration: 35 minutes 56 seconds
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Young and jobless: Is the government letting down China's Generation Z?
Published: May 1, 2023, 12:43 p.m.Duration: 31 minutes 56 seconds
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Japan's role in the making of modern China
Published: April 17, 2023, 4:29 p.m.Duration: 48 minutes 34 seconds
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Hollywood and China: happily ever after?
Published: April 3, 2023, 11:47 a.m.Duration: 31 minutes 43 seconds
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What Beijing wants out of the Russian invasion
Published: March 20, 2023, 4:32 p.m.Duration: 51 minutes 47 seconds
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Spy planes and infiltrators: a history of the CIA in China
Published: March 6, 2023, 3:44 p.m.Duration: 46 minutes 38 seconds
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Tiananmen and the Tang: the rise of rock in China
Published: Feb. 20, 2023, 6:12 p.m.Duration: 35 minutes 9 seconds
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Have Xinjiang's camps been closed?
Published: Feb. 6, 2023, 3:58 p.m.Duration: 42 minutes 25 seconds
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Covid's legacy: how will China remember the pandemic?
Published: Jan. 23, 2023, 4:46 p.m.Duration: 47 minutes 37 seconds
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Should Britain's Confucius Institutes be shut down?
Published: Jan. 9, 2023, 2:27 p.m.Duration: 30 minutes 9 seconds
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Strangers in a strange land: being foreign in China
Published: Dec. 12, 2022, 5:14 p.m.Duration: 39 minutes 26 seconds
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Echoes of 1989: where the protests go next
Published: Nov. 29, 2022, 1:09 a.m.Duration: 40 minutes 20 seconds
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Second class citizens: the lives of China's internal migrants
Published: Nov. 14, 2022, 3:54 p.m.Duration: 40 minutes 10 seconds
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Reflections on the 20th Party Congress: how Xi took complete control
Published: Oct. 28, 2022, 1:34 p.m.Duration: 32 minutes 4 seconds
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Censorship and sexuality: being gay in China
Published: Oct. 17, 2022, 10 a.m.Duration: 30 minutes 42 seconds
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Succession and power: a look ahead to the 20th Party Congress
Published: Oct. 3, 2022, 12:31 p.m.Duration: 58 minutes 11 seconds
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History and belonging: life in a Chinese mega-city
Published: Sept. 20, 2022, 5:29 p.m.Duration: 36 minutes 41 seconds
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Will Liz Truss declare a genocide in Xinjiang?
Published: Sept. 5, 2022, 4:50 p.m.Duration: 23 minutes 38 seconds
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The new great game: how China replaced Russia in Kazakhstan and beyond
Published: Aug. 22, 2022, 4:44 p.m.Duration: 41 minutes 14 seconds
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Pelosi's swansong: the Taiwanese view on her fleeting visit
Published: Aug. 5, 2022, 11:25 a.m.Duration: 25 minutes 8 seconds
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Is China's property market about to go bust?
Published: July 25, 2022, 11:18 a.m.Duration: 28 minutes 20 seconds
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Semiconductors: the next technological arms race
Published: July 11, 2022, 3:41 p.m.Duration: 43 minutes 50 seconds
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The radical age of Chinese cinema
Published: June 27, 2022, 4:29 p.m.Duration: 44 minutes 6 seconds
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Mythbusting the social credit system
Published: June 13, 2022, 3:26 p.m.Duration: 54 minutes 36 seconds
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How the Cultural Revolution shaped China's leaders today
Published: May 30, 2022, 5:12 p.m.Duration: 53 minutes 54 seconds
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How powerful is the People's Liberation Army?
Published: May 16, 2022, 1:05 p.m.Duration: 42 minutes 55 seconds
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Does China want to change the international rules-based order?
Published: May 2, 2022, 8:57 a.m.Duration: 35 minutes 26 seconds
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Algorithms and lockdowns: how China's gig economy works
Published: April 18, 2022, 11 a.m.Duration: 41 minutes 38 seconds
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Reinventing the Chinese language
Published: April 4, 2022, 4:01 p.m.Duration: 45 minutes 47 seconds
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The Taiwanese view on Ukraine
Published: March 21, 2022, 4:58 p.m.Duration: 35 minutes 22 seconds
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Freud and China: a love affair
Published: March 7, 2022, 5:44 p.m.Duration: 40 minutes 9 seconds
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Baby bust: what happens when China's population shrinks?
Published: Feb. 21, 2022, 3:48 p.m.Duration: 45 minutes 41 seconds
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The Xi-Putin alliance: how China and Russia are getting ever closer
Published: Feb. 7, 2022, 4:38 p.m.Duration: 41 minutes 26 seconds
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Politics and language: decoding the CCP
Published: Jan. 24, 2022, 5:54 p.m.Duration: 59 minutes 16 seconds
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Why does China care about the Olympics?
Published: Jan. 10, 2022, 6:20 p.m.Duration: 41 minutes 28 seconds
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The power of Weibo
Published: Dec. 13, 2021, 6:05 p.m.Duration: 39 minutes 24 seconds
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What is it to be 'Chinese'?
Published: Nov. 29, 2021, 7:10 p.m.Duration: 41 minutes 21 seconds
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Is 'common prosperity' the road to common poverty?
Published: Nov. 15, 2021, 6:11 p.m.Duration: 31 minutes 10 seconds
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Healing the 'cancer' of the Cultural Revolution
Published: Nov. 1, 2021, 6:23 p.m.Duration: 37 minutes 13 seconds
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Will Xi invade Taiwan?
Published: Oct. 18, 2021, 4:23 p.m.Duration: 31 minutes 28 seconds
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The Chinese love of drinking
Published: Oct. 4, 2021, 1:27 p.m.Duration: 31 minutes 49 seconds
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Has China got over the Japanese invasion?
Published: Sept. 20, 2021, 3:14 p.m.Duration: 39 minutes 35 seconds
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Ancestors and demons: a brief history of Chinese religion
Published: Sept. 6, 2021, 4:55 p.m.Duration: 37 minutes 55 seconds
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Will China become Afghanistan's new sponsor?
Published: Aug. 20, 2021, 2:31 p.m.Duration: 36 minutes 21 seconds
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Ketamine in China: has the country got over the opium wars?
Published: Aug. 9, 2021, 12:06 p.m.Duration: 23 minutes 6 seconds
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Black cat or white cat? Reconciling the two Deng Xiaopings
Published: July 26, 2021, 4:57 p.m.Duration: 41 minutes 27 seconds
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China's 'snowflake generation'
Published: July 12, 2021, 4:10 p.m.Duration: 28 minutes 46 seconds
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Hong Kong's National Security Law, one year on
Published: June 28, 2021, 9:41 a.m.Duration: 34 minutes 46 seconds
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Has economic engagement with China failed?
Published: June 14, 2021, 5:21 p.m.Duration: 39 minutes 13 seconds
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Journalism in China: what can and can't you say?
Published: May 31, 2021, 11:43 a.m.Duration: 38 minutes 27 seconds
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The fightback against facial recognition
Published: May 17, 2021, 4:06 p.m.Duration: 40 minutes 21 seconds
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Respect your elders: how the Chinese see family life
Published: May 3, 2021, 4:07 p.m.Duration: 30 minutes 20 seconds
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Do China's intellectual elite support the government?
Published: April 19, 2021, 3:28 p.m.Duration: 34 minutes 41 seconds
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Why does China care about Taiwan?
Published: April 5, 2021, 3:48 p.m.Duration: 40 minutes 33 seconds
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Is anyone still communist in the Chinese Communist Party?
Published: March 22, 2021, 4:02 p.m.Duration: 40 minutes 59 seconds
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The sacrifices and rewards of a Chinese-style education
Published: March 8, 2021, 6:31 p.m.Duration: 31 minutes 39 seconds
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Is China 'eating America's lunch'?
Published: Feb. 22, 2021, 7:08 p.m.Duration: 30 minutes 14 seconds
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How Hong Kong became what it is today
Published: Feb. 8, 2021, 5:48 p.m.Duration: 40 minutes 49 seconds
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The Chinese backlash against Big Tech
Published: Jan. 25, 2021, 7:22 p.m.Duration: 34 minutes 3 seconds
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What's behind Beijing's treatment of the Uyghurs?
Published: Jan. 11, 2021, 6:37 p.m.Duration: 51 minutes 14 seconds
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Is China turning away from the world?
Published: Dec. 21, 2020, 3:35 p.m.Duration: 23 minutes
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China's long history of student protests
Published: Dec. 7, 2020, 5:18 p.m.Duration: 29 minutes 24 seconds
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Has China really beaten Covid?
Published: Nov. 23, 2020, 8:07 p.m.Duration: 59 minutes 49 seconds
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How China's richest man flew too close to the sun
Published: Nov. 9, 2020, 7:36 p.m.Duration: 32 minutes 18 seconds
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Who are the Chinese-Americans voting for Trump?
Published: Oct. 26, 2020, 6:48 p.m.Duration: 27 minutes 54 seconds
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Half the sky: the woman's place in Chinese society
Published: Oct. 12, 2020, 5:38 p.m.Duration: 31 minutes 44 seconds
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How green is China?
Published: Sept. 28, 2020, 7:17 p.m.Duration: 33 minutes 24 seconds
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The real housewives of Beijing: why the Chinese love luxury goods
Published: Sept. 14, 2020, 7 p.m.Duration: 24 minutes 21 seconds
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What tickles China's political elite?
Published: Aug. 31, 2020, 3:36 p.m.Duration: 29 minutes 20 seconds
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Trump's Great Firewall
Published: Aug. 17, 2020, 6:22 p.m.Duration: 28 minutes 54 seconds
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What do the 'wolf warrior' diplomats want?
Published: Aug. 3, 2020, 9 a.m.Duration: 27 minutes 12 seconds
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Are Chinese companies arms of the state?
Published: July 20, 2020, 5:03 p.m.Duration: 37 minutes 17 seconds
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What does Beijing want with Hong Kong?
Published: July 6, 2020, 7:08 p.m.Duration: 27 minutes 48 seconds
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