ChinaPower

The content is good, and Bonnie Lin is a credible expert. She does sound like she’s just reading from a prompter, but I still tune in to every episode for her insightful questioning of quality guests. I question her haters in the reviews; they often use idioms that don’t quite sound right. Perhaps she’s gotten under somebody’s skin half a world away? All the more reason to be curious to hear Ms. Lin’s talented voice.

The presentation needs work. Bonnie needs to work on sounding less like she is reading. I find it distracting.

The discussant, Caitlin Chin, gave an unabashed promotion of the app without even mentioning the report that ByteDance the parent company has admitted to several of its employees accessing private data on American journalists and downplaying the state control nature of ByteDance. Instead she tries to make the case that the only issues with TikTok are privacy issues, common to all social platforms and downplays the fact that the CCP has significant control over ByteDance/TikTok. Additionally she did not mention a recent Forbes article on the lose security measures at TikTok data service centers. For a good discussion of the issue go listen to the Economist podcast on this issue.

This was an interesting and thoughtful discussion of what the US, China and Taiwan should do in order to avoid a conflict across the Taiwan Straits What we need to hear next is how should the US and Taiwan respond to “uses of force“ by China that fall short of outright military invasion. What should the US do if China blockades Taiwan? What should the US do if China takes measures less than a blockade? Looking forward to that discussion!