The Little Red Podcast
Graeme Smith and Louisa Lim
Recent Episodes
Writers from Hong Kong face a Kafkaesque decision in the years since draconian security legislation was imposed on the city: to stay and be subject to intense censorship, or to write freely from exile. In this episode, Louisa speaks to two award-winning authors who have chosen different paths. Lau Yeewa is still living in Hong Kong; her book Tongueless, translated by Jennifer Feeley, won the 2024 Pen Translates award. Gigi Leung Lee-chi is now based in Taiwan, and her book The Melancholy of Trees has just won Taiwan's Golden Tripod award.
Image: c/- Wikimedia Commons, Empty Bookshelves, 2014
Transcripts available at https://www.thechinastory.org/lrp/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In our third episode on pig butchering scams, we explore the origins of the Chinese criminal syndicates that enslave people from at least 66 different countries. We examine the institutions supporting this appalling business, from the Thai military to cryptocurrencies, Burmese border guard forces to special economic zones. And the marks for these scam syndicates are not just Chinese lonely hearts—Western countries are now more profitable to scam than China. To ask what can be done to counter this trade, Graeme is joined by Jason Tower, director of the Burma Program at the United States Institute of Peace, and Greg Raymond from the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre.
Image: c/- Stefan Czimmek/DW, KK Park on the Myanmar-Thai border
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Taiwan is ground zero for cognitive warfare, with the island subject to more disinformation than any other democracy. The targets are political candidates, media outlets, even boy bands. The threat is so serious that Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice recently set up a Cognitive Warfare Research Center. To explore this war for Taiwanese minds, Louisa and Graeme are joined by independent writer Min Chao and journalist Brian Hioe from New Bloom Magazine.
Image: Taiwan News Formosa TV, YouTube, 20 January 2024.
Transcripts available at: https://www.thechinastory.org/lrp/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
After our last episode on an online romance scam operating out of Palau we were contacted by Neo Lu, who was trafficked to work in an online scam camp on the Myanmar-Thailand border, the victim of a $US3 trillion global criminal industry. He joins Louisa and Graeme to offer jaw-dropping detail on life inside a scam centre, the mechanics of pig butchering, who benefits from this new form of slavery and how they launder their profits.
Image: c/- Yihao Lu, Scamming equipment, Dongmei Camp, 2022
Episode transcripts are available at https://www.thechinastory.org/lrp/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chinese triads have been making a Pacific play, notably in the tiny nation of Palau. There a notorious triad boss - nicknamed Broken Tooth - reinvented himself as a CCP-linked businessman trying to set up a 'gangster-themed' casino, while police busted a Chinese 'fraud factory'. In Palau, this scam scheme was linked to businessmen touting United Front credentials, who are also involved in local politics and media outlets. To examine the ties between Chinese gangsters and the Communist Party, Louisa and Graeme are joined by Aubrey Belford, the lead Pacific editor for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and freelance journalist Bernadette Carreon.
Image: Downtown Koror, Palau’s largest town. Image c/- Richard Brooks
Transcripts available at https://www.thechinastory.org/lrp/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.