Kaiser Kuo and SupChina

indy

Kaiser Kuo

If you follow China news you've probably heard the news that the company I work for,  The China Project (formerly SupChina), home to the Sinica Podcast and the other podcasts in our network, has announced that we're shutting down. We've begun winding down the company now.

Here's what I wrote about the whole thing on Twitter earlier today:

I’m overwhelmed by the words of support that have come pouring in since our announcement yesterday that we’re shutting down The China Project. My sincere thanks to everyone who’s reached out directly or here. A few things to clarify:

I learned about our impending shutdown over the weekend, barely a day after our NEXTChina Conference in NYC on Thursday. It was, by any measure, a tremendous success. So grateful to Lona Sniderman (BD), Elaine Chow (MKT), and Michelle Maiuri, our events director!

Many have focused on the political climate as cause of death. I think of it more as COVID to our underlying conditions: an acute crisis that, paired with the co-morbidity of just being a media company, did us in. Media startups are ever in a parlous state. 7 years aint’ bad!

(Speaking of COVID, I finally got it in New York and felt its full fury on Saturday. Still testing positive but feeling much better now. And it was the least of my weekend worries).

On the political factors, many have understandably focused on American (& esp. DC) sinophobia. Yep, plenty of that, and that’s where the legal costs came in. But just as importantly, Chinese companies and companies with China exposure were reluctant to sponsor.

That’s in large part due to our coverage of Xinjiang: featuring regular columns on the repression of Uyghurs (including one by Darren Byler), talking about it on the podcast, and even putting it in the boilerplate Sinica intro for nearly 5 years.

It’s always been an article of faith with us that given its sheer size and complexity, China’s Xinjiang policies, while risible, don’t mean that we simply write off the whole nation or even the whole leadership as “evil.”  

We’ve tried our best to capture that complexity and offer readers and listeners a multi-lens view on China from a variety of perspectives — including from a variety of normative perspectives.

The upshot is between people who saw us as panda-huggers and those who saw us as hostile foreign forces — or simply as too controversial — our range of potential investors and sponsors was narrowed.

Still, we really were hitting our stride, with everything moving in the right direction. It was a runway problem, not a fundamental business model problem. The team stayed very small. Podcasts was a one-person operation (me), plus one ex-intern part-time.

The demise of The China Project has been dispiriting in many ways. It’s incredibly painful to disband a team I love so much, and that’s shown so much dedication, talent, and passion. And there’s not one jerk among them. All top-shelf humans.

Our CEO made the right decision to use the cash we still have to wind things down properly, compensating employees and not expecting them to continue working while he threw a last Hail Mary. Tough but right call.

Our staff can all be really proud of what we built together. What a fantastic crew of lovely and brilliant people. There’s a ton of love that will long outlast the company itself, and they’ll all go on to great things.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Goldkorn and I would still love to work together in some capacity. I doubt you’ve heard the last from us.

Do Jeremy and I always agree? Absolutely not. And that’s a good thing. We challenge each other and keep one another honest. But more importantly, we respect one another, and we work together well — not something all friends can manage.

For example, Jeremy will hate the sentimentality in this thread. I can see his reaction clearly in my mind! (He’s actually a softy behind that curmudgeonly exterior).

Jeremy and I have been friends since we first met in 1997, some 26 years ago in Beijing. We started something called “Sinica” before podcasts really were a thing — our first failed media venture! — in 2004. The @SinicaPodcast launched in April 2010.

Nearly 14 years later, we’re not about to call it quits. We’ll take some time to grieve and heal (more language Jeremy will hate!) but meanwhile please don’t delete your Sinica subscription.

In the last 14 hours, just about every single person in the China field whose wisdom I cherish and whose work I admire has reached out with words of encouragement. I’m truly touched, and I’m inspired to redouble my efforts in these difficult times.

indy