Professor Joan Kaufman, a leading expert on HIV/AIDS and China, talks about her experiences in public health while working in China with the UN, the Ford Foundation, and in academia.This podcast episode is a collaboration with China Health Pulse . About Peking Hotel The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Ins...
Dec 01, 2025•52 min
Hoover Institution research fellow Dr. Alice Miller talks about how, as a CIA analyst, she could figure out political changes in China were afoot based on state media articles. About Peking Hotel The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China experts living in the U.S. Th...
Nov 02, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Author Ian Johnson talks about how he returned to China in 2009 to write his books ‘The Souls of China’ and ‘Sparks,’ which both deal with China's search for meaning. About Peking Hotel The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China experts living in the U.S. Their storie...
Oct 19, 2025•58 min
Stephen Roach talks about how, as the former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, h ehad the hear of many Asian political leaders. But as he became more pessimistic about the Chinese economy, China’s leadership became less interested in what he had to say. About Peking Hotel The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoove...
Aug 28, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Associate professor David Moser talks about how he has been a bridge between the U.S. and China. After so many decades, he’s disappointed in both countries. But China remains his “drug of choice.”Subscribe to our Substack newsletter at pekinghotel.substack.com Podcast music: Mélodie, Kobi Salomon, Artlist Classics, Edvard Grieg, Ezequiel Jait, Artlist Original Music About Peking Hotel The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists ab...
Jul 24, 2025•56 min
What’s it like for a foreigner to perform Xiangsheng —China’s traditional crosstalk comedy—on the biggest stage in the Sinophone world, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala? In 1999, David Moser did just that. Now an Associate Professor at Beijing Capital Normal University, David had already spent a decade in China by then, studying Xiangsheng under Master Ding Guangquan, translating books, and helping seed China’s underground jazz scene.Yet, despite his intimidating list of talents, when you meet him,...
Jul 05, 2025•56 min
Prof. Judith Shapiro reflects on how the environment used to be a cause for which Chinese civil society was allowed to fight, until that too became sensitive.Host: Liu He Subscribe to our Substack newsletter at pekinghotel.substack.com About Peking Hotel The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution col...
May 29, 2025•47 min
Before her career switch to researching environmental politics, Prof. Judith Shapiro spent a whirlwind decade teaching, writing, and living in and about China as it awakened from the Mao era. Get full access to Peking Hotel at pekinghotel.substack.com/subscribe
Apr 30, 2025•43 min
Democracy scholar Larry Diamond discusses why democratisation in China and Hong Kong failed, and how activists can keep the global movement against autocracy going as the U.S. turns isolationist. Follow our Substack at Peking Hotel About us The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral h...
Mar 11, 2025•1 hr 12 min
For quick navigation: China’s qiqong fever Chasing the Falun Gong beat in Beijing and around China Winning the Pulitzer Recommended Readings: David Ownby, 1996, Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China, Standford Universit Ian Johnson, 2004, Wild Grass, Pantheon David A. Palmer, 2007, Qigong Fever, Columbia University Press David Ownby, 2008, Falun Gong and the Future of China, Oxford University Press Ian Johnson, 2017, Souls of China, Knopf Doubleday Ian Johnson, 2023, Spar...
Feb 20, 2025•54 min
Click here for Lunar New Year community livestreaming signup. 6pm Pacific Time, Jan 29th I never deliberately timed this piece with the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, yet now that we have stumbled upon this occasion, it also seems fitting. For to answer the question “what will Trump do about China?” it is necessary to revisit and review the recent history of U.S.-China relations, the dynamics of both American and Chinese domestic politics, and the macro forces shaping the political e...
Jan 21, 2025•1 hr
Susan Shirk discusses more events that happened during her time in the Clinton Administration, including NATO's accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Falun Gong protests in Beijing, and Jiang Zemin's visit to the U.S. Substack: https://pekinghotel.substack.com Instagram: peking.hotel And please tell your friends about us! https://pekinghotel.substack.com/p/do-you-enjoy-reading-peking-hotel Get full access to Peking Hotel at pekinghotel.substack.com/subscribe...
Dec 21, 2024•1 hr 7 min
In this episode of Peking Hotel, China scholar Susan Shirk discusses how she joined the Clinton administration, negotiated the WTO deal, and lost faith in the U.S. ability to improve human rights in China. Get full access to Peking Hotel at pekinghotel.substack.com/subscribe
Dec 05, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Liu He speaks with Ian Johnson, a longtime China journalist and the author of the recent book "Sparks," about his first experiences in China, his reflections on foreign reporting, and his own career covering the country. The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China expe...
Nov 22, 2024•42 min
Fox Butterfield is a Pulitzer-winning journalist who has served in Saigon, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Boston, Washington and New York City. He was the first China correspondent of the New York Times since 1949 and opened the Beijing Bureau of the Times in 1979, just after diplomatic relations between China and the US normalised. His journalistic book on China, Alive In The Bitter Sea, became a best-seller and phenomenon in the early 80s, launching the genre of journalist books on contemporary Ch...
Oct 29, 2024•55 min
When I arrived at Fox’s place, his chocolate lab, Charlie, greeted me with a wagging tail. The rainy weather outside, unfortunately, obscured what otherwise promised to be a stunning view of Mount Hood from Fox’s living room. But the conversation more than made up for what I missed in the landscape. Fox poured me a glass of water and sat opposite me on a grey sofa, wearing a navy blue jumper. Early this month, we published a piece about Fox’s early study of China under John Fairbank at Harvard a...
Oct 18, 2024•54 min
It was fun seeing Fox Butterfield, the first New York Times correspondent in China since 1949, in Portland, Oregon back in July. I last visited Portland in 2022, and you never quite get over the sight of Mount Hood dominating the horizon on a clear summer day in its awesome fashion. Fox welcomed me to his home, perched on a small hill in a modestly upscale suburb. A history enthusiast, he has lived through and witnessed some of the most pivotal moments in modern history: from meeting Harry Truma...
Oct 07, 2024•45 min
Arriving at Orville’s place takes you through a scenic drive on the Berkeley Hills. Quintessential to the Bay Area, driving on the steep, winding roads feels like the slow climbing of a rollercoaster. At the summit, glimpses of the Golden Gates Bridge peek through the misty clouds. On a clear day, the urban sprawl of San Francisco, Berkeley and Albany unfolds beneath you; even on a rainy day, the charming neighbourhoods with Berkeley Bungalows more than make up for the long drive from Palo Alto....
Sep 10, 2024•56 min
Welcome back! My first piece on Orville’s experience in the 80s had good reader reception, many thanks to your support! This piece focuses on Orville's story in the 60s and 70s working on China. Orville Schell is the Director of Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society. In this one, you will hear about Orville’s grandfather who taught medicine in Changsha in late qing; his semi-activist mom; studying with John Fairbank at Harvard; drinking tea with Chiang Kai-shek in Taipei; locked in a ...
Jul 03, 2024•59 min
Orville Schell on his experience in China in the 1980s, a magical decade in recent history that brought hope, optimism, dynamism and endless possibilities in China, and ended with Tiananmen Massacre. The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are a bilingual online publication that takes you down memory lane of recent history in China, and narrates China’s reality through the personal tales of China experts. We present subjective, opinionated, and coloured views of veterans in the field based on th...
May 25, 2024•40 min
