Month: March 2023

Correcting the record (and oriental gaze) on Radiolab’s China Mixtape episode

Posted on by Jason Li
A soldier with red star cap and uniform holds up a casette tape and a machine gun, drawn in the style of a Communist China propaganda poster from many decades ago.
A still from Radiolab’s trailer for its Mixtape series (from Youtube)

Many moons ago, Krish Raghav raised some serious concerns about a Radiolab episode on the emergence of the rock music scene in China. “Framing China’s musical lineage as ‘Revolutionary operas to John Denver’ is such a frustrating half-truth,” he said, “[and] positing ‘western’…

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Innovating through manufacturing, the China way

Posted on by Jason Li

Dan Wang writes in Foreign Affair about how China is gaining ground over the US in the tech space by challenging the Western model where scientific discovery reigns supreme:

Unlike the West, China has grounded its technology sector not in glamorous research and advanced science but in the less flashy task of improving manufacturing capabilities. If Washington is serious about…

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