How Americans Misunderstand China's Political System (Chua & Lei)

Annex Sociology Podcast

In today's episode of The Annex, we discuss how Americans misunderstand China and its political system. We imagine a society in which the government controls what people know and what they say. We hear about government filters and censorship, and how democracy activists are punished for their speech. But is it all so simple?

In this episode of The Annex Live, we will sit down to learn the details of China's political and government system with two experts. Ya-Wen Lei (Harvard University) is is the author of The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China (Princeton University Press), a book that examines the development of the Chinese public sphere through during the Internet revolution. Emily Chua (National University of Singapore) is the author of the upcoming The Currency of Truth: Newsmaking and the Late-Socialist Imaginaries of China's Digital Era (University of Michigan Press), a book about the detailed inner workings of the Chinese media and how these relationships shape journalism and governance in that country.