This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser chats with Silvia Lindtner of the University of Michigan about her book Prototype Nation. In a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss how China’s maker movement inspired the Party leadership to encourage tech entrepreneurship, how Shenzhen rose to such prominence in technology production, the fetishization of the shanzhai movement, and much more.
5:29 – How narratives on Chinese tech innovation have shifted
14:10 – What made China’s technological innovation possible?
20:37 – State support for the maker movement and mass innovation
29:52 – The technocratic and entrepreneurial mindset of the CCP
38:45 – Techno-optimism in China versus the West
45:57 – Shenzhen’s “hacker paradise” as a transnational project
50:02 – Orientalism in the West’s fascination with shanzhai, or copycat, culture
A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.
Recommendations:
Silvia: In This Moment, We Are Happy by Chen Qiufan and Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures by Kalindi Vora and Neda Atanasoski
Kaiser: Sarmat Archery based in Kiev, Ukraine
