Studying China in the 21st Century (What Everybody Needs to Know) with special guest Maura Cunningham

Barbarians at the Gate

In this episode, Jeremiah and David have a long-overdue discussion with historian and writer Maura Cunningham. Maura was Editor-in-Chief of the classic blog China Beat, a fellow at the Asia Society Center on US-China Relations, Program Officer at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and is now the Digital Media Manager for The Association of Asian Scholars (AAS) in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Maura is also the co-author, with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, of the essential book China in the 21st Century: Everything You Need to Know, and the podcast conversation starts with a reconsideration of the book’s title: “What are the new China realities ‘everyone needs to know’ in the post-Covid, post-Xi Jinping era?”

We compare notes with Maura about the current state of scholarly research on China, the aftermath of the pandemic on US-China academic exchange programs, and the problems of maintaining standards of academic freedom amidst the tightening of the Chinese information environment.

Other topics include a reevaluation of the fundamental goals of China research and the prospects of increased Chinese language training and sinological research activity in China under increasing research limitations in the PRC.

Greitens, S., & Truex, R. (2020). Repressive Experiences among China Scholars: New Evidence from Survey Data. The China Quarterly, 242, 349-375. doi:10.1017/S0305741019000365

Will I Return to China?: A ChinaFile Conversation (June 21, 2021)

Wasserstrom, J. N., & Cunningham, M. E. (2018). China in the 21st century: What Everyone Needs to Know.