The Chinese Game Industry’s Journey to the West — Rui Ma and Rob Wynne on the Success of Black Myth: Wukong

This week on Sinica, I chat with Jessica Chen Weiss, until recently at Cornell University but now the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, SAIS, in Washington D.C. Jessica, to those of you familiar with her work, has been at the forefront of the fight for a less strident, diplomacy-first approach to China, balancing threats with assurances to find a modus vivendi with China. She has challenged prevailing notions about China's intentions, and has called for the U.S. to advance an affirmative vision of how it wants to live in the world with China. We focus in this conversation about a recent piece in Foreign Affairs in which she challenges both the solidity and the logic of the "bipartisan consensus" on China, and holds out hope that a next administration might approach the relationship differently.3:45 – How Jessica has settled into D.C.; her professorial namesake; and how she has become a leading voice for a less confrontational approach to China9:30 – Where Jessica sees diverging views on China in the Republican and Democratic Parties 12:41 – What a more durable basis for coexistence should look like14:46 – Credible deterrence and strategic ambiguity in the context of Taiwan 16:03 – Acknowledgements to limits on American power and the importance of being realistic 18:09 – Assurances on Taiwan and what threatens their credibility 21:13 – The question of engagement and the deterrent effect of economic integration25:30 – How the U.S. can combat legitimate national security threats from China without undermining its own values, and the importance of not treating the Chinese in diaspora as a fifth column 31:31 – Electoral politics: the importance of welcoming and inclusive policies and creating space for debate and discernment35:07 – The importance of testing our assumptions 38:30 – What another Trump presidency might look like 40:30 – How a Harris administration might differ from the Biden administration44:13 – The U.S. and China-Russia relationsRecommendations:Jessica: Valarie Kaur’s Sage Warrior: Wake to Oneness, Practice Pleasure, Choose Courage, Become Victory Kaiser: BeaGo, an AI-powered search tool (download from your app store!)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week I continue my conversations with some of the outstanding Schwarzman Scholars who presented at the Capstone Showcase in late June. In this episode, I speak with Nainika Sudheendra about the problem of space debris and what can be done to reduce the creation of more of it or even begin removal of debris before it makes the launching of new satellites more costly or even impossible.2:34 Nainika’s background and interest in the Schwarzman program5:33 Why Nainika focused on space debris 7:23 Nainika’s prior knowledge about the Chinese space program and what she learned through the Schwarzman program10:30 How space debris is measured, the Kessler syndrome, and the hazards that space debris poses 14:33 The obstacles Nainika encountered in her research 16:35 How political leaders in China and the U.S. are thinking about the space debris problem20:02 How debris mitigation might [ought to?] be incentivized, who is working on the problem now, and the role of private insurers 24:03 The Wolf Amendment and Chinese private sector space companies 27:22 Technologies for mitigating and remediating debris 31:00 Lessons from another tragedy of the commons (the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer), and how the EU could take a leading role 34:59 The importance of data standardization and opportunities to negotiate fair use and safety precautions38:17  How redundancy prevents public perception — the difficulty in going from “outage” to “outrage” 40:27 What Nainika has been doing since finishing at Schwarzman Recommendations:Nainika: From Streets to Stalls: The History and Evolution of Hawking and Hawker Centres in Singapore by Ryan Kueh (another Schwarzman alum) Kaiser: Journalist Andrew Jones on Twitter; the South Indian restaurant Viks Chaat in Berkeley, California See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I thought Sinica listeners might be interested in listening to an audio narration of my latest essay. I hope you enjoy and that it gives you some food for thought! If you prefer to read, you can find the essay — free for everyone this week — right here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Chinese game studio Game Science has a hit on its hands! The game Black Myth: Wukong, an action role-playing game (ARPG) based on the Monkey King from Journey to the West, has sold extraordinarily well in China and is breaking new ground in the U.S. market as well. This week, I speak with Rui Ma, who runs Tech Buzz China and is one of the most highly-regarded China tech commentators in the U.S., and with Robert Wynne, an industry veteran with many years in China currently serving as COO of a new game start-up that's still under wraps. They share their insights into the strengths and weaknesses of Black Myth: Wukong and the future of Chinese games.6:44 – The scale of the phenomenon of Black Myth: Wukong 12:01 – Rui and Rob’s thoughts about the game (so far)17:23 – What Chinese players think of the game, and the difficulty in understanding its esoteric characters for Western players 24:23 – The appeal of mobile games versus console games in China 27:30 – The difficulty of attracting investment [or “How Game Science attracted investment”]31:06 – Rob’s criticism of the game’s go-to-market strategy and its lost opportunities 35:46 – The party-state's response so far, and the politics surrounding the game40:57 – Feng Ji, the founding of Game Science, and his criticisms of the gaming industry 46:01 – AAA Chinese games to look forward to49:29 – The impressive success stats of Black Myth: WukongRecommendations:Rui: Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a HurryRob: The Chinese TV series Escape from Trilateral Slopes (Biān shuǐ wǎngshì 边水往事) (2024)Kaiser: Steve Stewart-Williams, The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture EvolveSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, I chat with Olivia Fu, who this spring completed her year at Schwarzman College and wrote her Capstone project — a research paper that is required of all Schwarzman Scholars — on the rise and fall of the Beijing hip-hop scene. We explore some of the parallels to Beijing's rock scene, and how many of the same factors that stifled rock in Beijing ultimately led to Beijing's relative decline as a hip-hop city. 3:16 – Olivia’s background and connection to China, and what drew her to the Schwarzman Program and studying hip-hop6:13 – Olivia’s Schwarzman mentor, Paul Pickowicz 7:47 – How Olivia dealt with censorship in her Capstone project 10:24 – The parallels and differences between the hip-hop and rock scenes in China12:27 – The dakou CDs and the origins of the hip-hop scene in China 17:03 – The influences of Japanese and Korean rap and hip-hop and Black American culture18:30 – The importance of studying Beijing hip-hop 23:05 – The spirit of Beijing and societal commentary in Beijing hip-hop 27:38 – The phenomenon of Rap of China 29:50 – The divergence of PG One and GAI, and the regulatory influence of the State Administration on Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television35:13 – Sinifying hip-hop 37:21 – What the burgeoning hip-hop scene in China was like in the early 2000s40:10 – Critiques of the Beijing dialect in rap and the Beijing rap style 45:16 – Iron Mic rap battles and Shanghai, and Chinese hip-hop’s critique of the educational system 48:34 – Why Beijing rap declined 59:09 – What’s next for Olivia See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey folks! I took some time off to drive the kids to college and then flew to California to celebrate my brother John’s birthday. The upshot is there’s no interview this week, so in place of that, here’s my essay from this week. Hope you enjoy it. If all goes as planned, I’m back next week with regular interview for Sinica!You can find the text of the essay at sinicapodcast.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I was looking for a good episode to pull from the archive to run this week as I'll be traveling and I asked my good friend Deb Seligsohn for a recommendation. She went immediately to this one, and by God if it's not an oldie-but-goodie. This is from December 2015 and features Jeremy Goldkorn — I miss him dearly! — and Terry Townshend, an absolute institution in China's birding community.I'll likely have to run another re-run next week, and I welcome your suggestions!All best,KaiserRecommendations and Links:Birding Beijing Action for SwiftsBritish Trust for OrnithologyJonathan Franzen, Purity: A Novel Cement and Pig Consumption Reveal China's Huge ChangesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here's a little bonus ep for you ahead of tomorrow's show, which will be a re-run of a really fun one from about 10 years ago! I'm driving the rest of this week to the Midwest to drop my kids off at their respective universities, and I've been thinking a lot about the education systems in China and the U.S. So here's my essay for this week. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, Paul Triolo rejoins the show for a deep, deep dive into China's response to American export controls on advanced semiconductors and related technologies. How much hurt has the policy put on Chinese firms — and how far along is China in finding its way toward technological autonomy? Kevin Xu, author of the fantastic "Interconnected" newsletter, joins to talk about some of the big ideas he's written about in recent months and to play co-host as we grill Paul on China's efforts to get out from under American controls.9:10 – The downplaying of generative AI in the Third Plenum’s decision document 18:25 – Why the Middle East is an appealing and important region for major AI players 26:20 – Why chip wars have evolved into to cloud wars 29:36 – How China has fared in trying to achieve its goal of indigenous advanced semiconductor manufacture31:50 – Semiconductors: What lies within the “small yard” versus what products are unaffected under U.S. export controls35:42 – The quality and reliability caveat to China’s goal of self-sufficiency in semiconductor manufacture 38:35 – The success of the Biden administration’s export controls and whether the controls have really put the hurt on anyone 46:00 – The Harmony operating system 47:47 – The importance of packaging 50:45 – Paul explains what he calls “China Semiconductor Industry Policy 3.0” and its predecessors57:03 – China’s EUV lithography challenge1:03:14 – DUV lithography and multi-patterning, and the importance of collaboration across the ecosystemin the process of making semiconductors at scale 1:11:50 – Huawei’s progress so far and remaining major hurdles and bottlenecks 1:18:42 – Paul and Kevin’s thoughts on whether the American strategic class will regret its approach to export controls and whether there is an off-ramp Recommendations:Paul: Ed Conway’s Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization Kevin: Thurston Clarke’s The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America Kaiser: The House of the Dragon (2022- ) TV series See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Sinica, I'm joined by Eric Olander, host of the outstanding China in Africa Podcast and the indispensable China-Global South Podcast, and creator of the China-Global South Project. Eric's detailed and very current knowledge of China's relations across the developing world is on display in this whirlwind tour that takes us from the troubled waters of the South China Sea to China's diplomatic efforts in the Middle East, on to Subsaharan Africa and how Washington has struggled to create policies that can match what China offers, and to Latin America. He then zooms out and talks about what it all means in aggregate. Don't miss this show!Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter! Go to sinicapodcast.com to sign up! And if you want to support my work and access premium content, please be sure to become a paying subscriber.2:39 The situation with the Philippines and the Second Thomas Shoal, and the U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty — the potential challenges in activating it on the U.S. side and President Marcos’ changing standards for invoking it 15:50 ASEAN’s difficulty in reaching consensus, and Myanmar as another ASEAN priority  18:53 China’s role as convener in brokering a “unity deal” for Palestine23:02 The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) 30:20 Why Africa is so hard to fit onto the U.S. foreign policy agenda and the lack of a forward-looking American vision for Africa 37:56 Geraud Neema’s disappointment with Washington’s talk about battery metals and critical minerals42:22 The pushback from Mexico’s finance minister and Mexico’s concern over the growing number of imports from China46:48 The trade surplus number and long-term concerns for China’s exports 49:35 Brazilian President Lula hints at willingness to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) 51:51 How it all fits together, and how China has leveraged the Global South’s frustration over the U.S.-European-led international order Recommendations:Eric: Matt Pottinger’s The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, and Anne Stevenson-Yang’s Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese EconomyKaiser: Will Durant’s books from The Story of Civilization, especially The Age of Faith and The Reformation, as well as the audiobook versions read by Stefan Rudnicki See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.